#or if the person mainly on their phone wasnt MY MANAGER

[labratgrl]

every time i remember how my old job had a jar for phones made rather than just asking the team to put their phones down i grow another feather. and brother you can call me biblical the way i am made of wings

[themoonsings]

hi y’all! my name’s blue and this is my good sis luna! you can find some info on her below! 

luna song was spotted in the fashion district adorning red bottoms , with some airpod pros on . they’re most likely listening to love me 4 me by rina sawayama . you may know them as @lunasong or as that rosé lookalike . their twenty-third birthday just passed . while living in tribeca , they’ve gained a bit of a reputation . they’re known to be ruthless but on the other hand captivating . wonder if they’ll be the next person to hit the headlines . [ ciswoman / she/her + blue / 24 / she/her ]

she’s 2nd gen & gave her parents gave her a korean name mainly to appease their parents and one in english. her korean name is ae-cha while her english name is luna. pretty much everyone calls/has always called her luna except her grandparents and sometimes her fanbase in korea.

she grew up in one of the boroughs and her family was middle class.

grew up knowing/speaking korean and english.

she had three best friends growing up, and they did practically everything together. they were in their tweens when luna got the idea that they should start a girl group, like so many that they always listened and looked up to and her friends readily agreed. 

they were still young so people didn’t take them seriously at first, much to a 12-year-old luna’s chagrin. but they were actually pretty good. in the beginning they didn’t know how to read sheet music super well yet and mostly did covers so luna would help with figuring out which parts each of them would sing and scheduling rehearsals, even pestering classmates into getting them gigs. (sidenote: luna’s group/bandmates are a wanted connection and on the main if you wanna know a little bit more you can click here! I’d love to have some/all of her groupmate spots filled!)

her parents were always super supportive of the group and were driving them to competitions, auditions, etc. luna was driven and annoying as hell in the way she pestered all these grown ass adults and even recording labels into trying to hear them/let them in to no avail. 

it wasnt until luna was 16 (about seven years ago) that they were able to actually get signed to a record label. at first no one took them seriously and no one wanted to sign them because people insisted that girl groups didn’t do well, didn’t last long, that people didn’t like them, etc. and there was a lot of back and forth over creative differences, as by that point the girls wrote their own music. 

BUT, their debut album actually did surprisingly well and better than even their management expected. soon they were having their music videos features on disney channel tv breaks, playing on the radio, getting lots of views on youtube. they were everywhere and people seemed to like the “realness” of their story--it made for good interviews and whatnot. 

they continued on like that, dropping three more albums which broke records, lead to worldwide tours, won grammys, lead them to several tv cameos, and even their own movie (think spice world but like better/funner plot, although still not super serious cinema) and documentary. they’re absolutely HUGE now, think peak destiny’s child type shit. they had their own reality tv show at one point, perfume, and even a make-up line with different shades and colors to match each girl’s “personality”. 

the aspects of their personality were played up a little bit to make them more marketable, i.e. one was the more “sporty” one, one was more “free-spirited”, etc. and how they’re styled usually reflects that, although now that they’re pretty established and older, they’ve been able to kind of be less characterized and more themselves. 

luna’s personality was always kind of the diva/primadonna meets relatable girl next door type role. basically she was just always dressed usually very hyper-feminine and has always publicly been considered/seen as kind of the “leader” of the group. 

that doesn’t come from nowhere because she’s very driven. she’s work hard play hard but you gotta tear her away from her email account enough for her to play hard. she’s nice and friendly but can be kind of intense. her biggest fear is not growing into her full potential. 

she knows how to play basic guitar and piano but her two main talents are her singing and ability to harmonize and understand different parts of music and her lyricism. 

can definitely be a drama queen at times. 

very adamant about using her platform to speak up for things when she can. her and her group faced a lot of hardships and discrimination within the industry because they were made up of a group of young women of color and she wants to make it easier for others to achieve their dreams, even if they weren’t born famous or rich. 

can definitely be judgement and bossy at times but will also 100% be there for you and supportive of you when you need her. 

she’s bisexual but the media hasn’t really caught wind of that yet. in the past, her management was adamant that she hide it but now it’s a thing where even if she is spotted with a girl, it’s very “just gals being pals” type headlines that usually come from it. 

she’s smart about her image and pretty much everything she does can make headlines. she’s usually pretty good about keeping her shit in line. she’s had advantageous relationships, both for pr and forreal and she’s something of a trendsetter in a lot of cases. luna dates someone and they’re hollywoods hottest couple, luna wears something and suddenly everyone on instagram is wearing it too. 

does a lot of philanthropy and likes to travel whenever she can. 

she’s friendly and open but don’t piss her off or stand in her way or be on some bs ‘cause she’s helped her and her girls fight their way to the top and she can be ruthless to her enemies, though only when she absolutely has to be. she probably has a little too much fight in her for her own good. 

constantly rumors of her going solo. her and her bandmates have an understanding where they’re chill with doing some individual work (i.e. releasing a single, doing a movie or tv show, starting their own fashion line, etc.) because they know the group’s more important and they’re always coming back to it but luna lately has been kind of worried they’re going to split up and she doesn’t want them to because they’re basically like sisters to her at this point since they grew up together. 

admittedly, luna does want to release her own solo album and she has been brought other projects but the group comes first and they’re working on their fifth studio album together. 

can probably find her working late or running off in the middle of something because she suddenly gets an idea. she also carries this cute lil notebook around with her for jotting down ideas and yes she could technically use her phone but she likes the tangibility of physically writing stuff down.

she always grew up in a house that was very much a home--always open to other people and her parents always willing to bring in food and entertain for the holidays, etc. and that’s how she likes her place now. she’s made her house just how she likes it and the door’s always open if you need someplace to crash for the night and no matter the hour, she’ll put the kettle on, whip up or order some food, and get the guest room ready. 

that’s luna! i’m working on a connections/wanted connections page now but in the meantime, my messages are open to plot or if you like this i can come to u!

[cultofbeatles]

beginners guide to the members of led zeppelin (kind of)

a disclaimer before anyone starts reading: we all know led zeppelin is shady as hell and we hardly ever get anything confirmed or denied around here. so some stuff is up for speculation. everything in this post are things i've read in books, heard in interviews, or got from some other source. when it comes to “facts about led zeppelin” sometimes you gotta take it with a grain of salt. but honestly it’s led zeppelin we’re talking about, anything is possible. also this is all in good fun and giggles. with that being said, let’s get started with introductions to the members themselves.

jimmy page 

james patrick page 

born on January 9, 1944 

he’s a capricorn sun, cancer moon, and scorpio rising so you just know he’s a crazy motherfucker 

was an amazing session guitarist and basically everyone wanted him 

went to art school bc he’s just talented at everything i guess 

if you didn't know already he played the guitar for Joe cocker’s ‘with a little help from my friends’

declined his first offer to join the yardbirds but later decided to join 

was the last member to leave the group

basically was the leader of led zeppelin 

was gifted a telecaster guitar by his friend jeff beck and he adored it 

and he painted a cool dragon design on it 

played on it for the first led zeppelin album 

when he was on tour one of his friends painted over his dragon design and ruined the guitar 

he produced all of led zeppelin’s albums and is responsible for the remastering of those same albums 

paid for led zeppelin’s first album to be produced with his own money

deadass would have whips and handcuffs around with him on tour for the groupies 

but was apparently an amazing lover and cared for the people he slept with

one time he got naked on a food cart thingy, put whip cream over his body, and had john bonham push him into a room with groupies in it 

has such a small and soft voice 

was fascinated in aleister crowley and his work

would collect crowely memorabilia 

even bought crowley’s boleskine house 

had a bookstore at one point so he could get books easier 

struggled with addiction to drugs for most of the seventies 

went on a liquid diet late seventies and refused to eat solid food 

he got really skinny bc of it :( 

miss pamela (one of his girlfriends/lovers) once said that jimmy cried on the phone to her over her playboy photoshoot lmaoo

once flied pamela’s pet raccoon in first class 

allegedly had a relationship with lori maddox who was about 15 years old 

laughed as two of his girlfriends were fighting each other 

was kind of constantly nervous about his and the band’s image

has amazing guitar solos and improvisation but damn sometimes they drag on foreverrrr

deadass scared the shit out of david bowie so much that he had his house exorcised and would avoid jimmy at parties 

we love demons 

zoso

he’ll never tell us what zoso means and I'm mad

had two people die in his home. one was a friend who died from a drug overdose, and the other was john bonham when he died from choking on his vomit.  

has been accused for the deaths of john bonham and robert plant’s son karac bc of that stupid “curse” rumor

deserves critiques for several things but doesn't deserve hate for that 

has been through a lot and come out pretty okay

produced his current girlfriend’s, scarlett sabet, spoken poetry vinyl 

check out scarlett’s work bc it’s amazing

would probably always be down for another led zeppelin reunion 

robert plant

robert anthony plant 

born on august 20, 1948

this is the most attractive man ever. do not argue with me. 

nicknamed percy 

wasnt jimmy’s first pick for a singer 

jerry reid suggested robert to jimmy. and when jimmy asked what he looked like jerry said, “like a greek god.”

jimmy thought something was wrong with robert when he first found him bc he was such a good singer and hadn't been signed yet 

after a practice together jimmy knew he had his singer 

he would call robert “the young guy with the powerful voice.”

he thought about leaving the band early on bc he was so nervous about being in it 

convinced john bonham to join the group bc they were the bestest of buddies 

he’s not credited on the first album bc he was still under another contract 

started song writing for the second album by jimmy’s memory 

it didn't take long for him to gain confidence and start owning the stage 

once when he was performing a dove flew in his hands 

there’s an audio of him singing john bonham happy birthday and it makes me so happy 

he would call himself a greek god 

would party with john bonham a lot 

kind of the hippy of the group 

moans moans moans and even louder moans into the microphone 

would wear women’s shirts and looked amazing in them 

nurses do it better 

not to mention his super tight jeans 

we all know his dick is huge and he’s just showing it off 

has the prettiest, fluffiest blonde hair 

and the sweetest smile 

can you tell that i find him attractive yet?

has a fear of earthquakes 

also supposedly had some sort of a relationship to an underage groupie named sable starr (14)

also has a fear of led zeppelin nowadays 

either fear or amnesia 

it’s likely that he’s the reason we’ll never get another led zeppelin reunion 

though a close friend thinks that if the show went to charity robert would probably do it 

robert loved john bonham too much to play in led zeppelin without him

and i respect that a lot 

no matter how much he’s offered for a show he turns it down every time

in 1975 he got in a severe car crash and ended up being in a wheelchair 

still went on to record zeppelin’s album 

once while recording on crutches and started to fall and jimmy apparently zoomed in to save him. robert never saw him move that fast before

his five year old son (karac) died from a sudden stomach illness while he was in america on tour

absolutely crushed him 

was deeply upset that neither jimmy page or john paul jones reached out to him during that time of his life 

john bonham was there for him though 

robert apparently never forgave them for that 

a car he was working on fell on top of him and crushed some of his ribs as well 

late seventies was not a good time for robert plant 

but he got through it all like a champ

hates stairway to heaven with a passion lmao  

one time he paid a radio station a shit ton of money just to make sure they'd never play stairway to heaven again 

almost didn't sing stairway for the 2007 reunion but ended up agreeing to it after all 

he said he breaks out in hives when he has to play that song 

he and jimmy made their own symbols. robert’s is the feather inside the circle 

in 2007 he won beard of the year 

john bonham

john bonham 

born on may 31, 1948

nickname is bonzo

oh boy, there’s a lot of stories about bonzo 

he was known as the nicest and sweetest guy ever 

unless he was drunk 

he drank a lot :/

denied jimmy’s offer to join the group and continued to deny it until robert convinced him 

once flew the starship (led zeppelin’s plane) even though he didn't have a license to 

hated touring so much 

he always missed his family 

so he drank 

he was so damn crazy when drunk that the other members would book rooms floors above where his was so he wouldn't disturb them

tore about his hotel rooms like no other 

he has a son named jason bonham who he loved a lot 

bought him a nice drum kit when he was younger 

jason is just about led zeppelin’s biggest fan next to jimmy page 

one time bonzo broke a girl’s vibrator when drunk

also punched a girl in the face when drunk once bc she waved at him 

partly responsible for the famous mud shark story where a girl was apparently fucked with a dead shark by him and zeppelin’s tour manager 

liked cars a lot 

really really loved his family. cannot stress it enough

was irked that john paul jones got out of playing shows during the christmas holiday and he didn't 

punched robert in the face once too 

him and john paul jones equals the best rhythm section ever 

jimmy would call it magic how well him and bonzo got along 

bonzo could handle anything jimmy threw at him 

he wasn't really a part of it, but he had to go to jail bc peter grant and two other dudes almost killing a man (long story omfg, but apparently the doctors had to put the dude’s eyeball back into his socket)

was there for robert when karac died 

they were really good friends 

there’s an interview with them together where bonzo is laughing at robert about his little farm 

gave good hugs apparently 

played drums like no other could and knew he was good 

but still sometimes got insecure and got upset when someone he looked up to said his drumming wasn't all that special 

his symbol is the three rings and he picked it out of a book like john paul jones did his 

he died in jimmy page’s house (not the crowley house btw)

he had to drink the equivalent of 40 shots of vodka and choked on his vomit in his sleep 

led zeppelin died on the same day 

nobody can replace john bonham 

his son filled in his role for the 2007 reunion show and did an amazing job of it. the whole show is on youtube, go check it out

john paul jones

 john richard baldwin 

born on january 3, 1946

nickname is jonesy 

was also a session guitarist like jimmy 

they had worked together before 

when he found out jimmy was forming a group he called jimmy and was basically given the spot immediately 

not only was the bassist but also the keyboardist 

and could play the recorder 

insanely talented. put some respect on his name 

he talks in italics i swear to god 

i don't have mainly crazy stories about jonesy bc he wasn't about that life 

deadass he would go on stage, perform, walk off stage and go to a whole separate hotel from the other

he would only tell one person where he was at and told them not to call unless for super urgent emergencies 

pissed peter grant off so much lmao 

wasn't really super close to anyone in the band tbh 

but bonzo was probably his greatest friend in the band 

jimmy and robert kind of leave him out in my opinion 

or they use to 

when he found out that jimmy and robert were making their own symbols instead of picking out of a book like he was he said “of course!”  and laughed 

was pretty much left out of the live aid show 

he had to squeeze himself on the stage and wasn't even able to play bass. he had to play the keyboard 

“and thank you to my friends for finally remembering my phone number” -savage as hell john paul jones 

he was one of the two people who found john bonham dead 

it’s sad to think about

is actually quite funny

he has this kind of dry humor?? idk but it’s amazing 10/10 content 

when john paul jones walks into the room interviewers break into a sweat

managed to look like a completely different person every year throughout the seventies or is it just my eyes?

has an Instagram account now go follow it for cute throwback photos lol

that’s all i really have for generic useless information about led zeppelin members for beginners. i hope it was somewhat entertaining. i'll make some more beginners stuff for led zeppelin. i will make y'all stan them lmao. i'm tagging @babygotblueeyes​ bc i know for a fact you want to get into them <3

[p1nkwitch]

If I may one last director's cut: And the Nightmare Collapses? 👁️

Ask as many as you want i dont mind.

Oh my monster au, what to say? I had this in the backburner for a few months now. Originally i was going to make a series of one shots from different characters perspectives.

So first it was going to be Jon waking up from the coma and realizing that everyone were monsters but him sort of like a walking dead scenario. I had the clear picture of him seeing Georgie in her hald deaf state being like, what the fuck happened???

Now the entire idea came to mind with how pissed off i was at everyone in season four acting like Jon was the worst for no discernable reason. Like, Melanie, Basira and Georgie, all treated him in different levels rather cruely. Georgie wasnt so mean, but she was playing blind eye to the whole thing being fucked.

So Jon is the only one who remains human because he tries so hard to keep his humanity despite everything. While everyone else becomes more monstruos, Basira and Melanie in particularly were much more affected, i had a clear vision of a slaughter Mel. But had to keep it brief since Georgie wouldnt want to dwell on her becoming a monster, since now she had no way to deny it. Daisy gets a pass because while on the coffin she regains her humanity by her regret of what she became, its why her changes are minimal in the text.

The other one shots were supposed to be from Elias and Peter perspective with the last being them reuniting.

Now my original idea had no reasoning as to why they were monsters all out sudden. Its not until i realized the potential of the entities just dropping in a world similar enough where they already existed and they end up overcharging, while still carrying the vestigies of the apocalipse that i went like-

Hoy fuck.

Ultimately i am happy with the one shot the way it came out, with Elias being able to see, he was capable of tying up those little threads i wanted to make and make the reference to having an anchor. Anchors tie you to humanity, people are fundamentaly capable of good if they wish too, kindness even in the face of despair, destroys the horrors of the world.

The world wont fix itself, but you adapt and grown and try to make it better.

Now as for the story itself? I just wanted to go buck wild with the scenery of reality fracturing itself and Elias just losing it while perceiving the horrors and understanding far more than possible.

I like eldritch horror i just dont use it enough, or horror shorts in general, maybe i should put up the small ones i made in tumblr they are like a paragraph long each.

For realsies, I really like the idea of monster Elias for several reasons and i wanted to go with it. I have another different take on this verse of how things pan out too, but i will see eventually if i want to write it. There is... also the horny aspec of Peter being, as the fic implies, a monster fucker, not really he just loves Elias whatever shape he comes even if its some weird owl spider thing. If i ever feel brave enough to go thought it in an extra will shall see.

Anyways Jonah goes through life replacing people while manipulating them and toying with their sanity like he did to the ogElias in his interview. Despite being beholding, as per the soup theory, at this point he also represents the stranger, web and spiral fairly well. I have a soft soft for him losing the ability to recognize himself after a while. Because as i pointed out? He kept sort of a more or less stable life, sure, but it must be jarring having to go from one face to another, to have to pretend to be someone else, at least enough that its not glaringly obvious that something is wrong.

So he loses it. The fears overcharge and it all stacks up on him, causing his transformation to be so strong, it ends up consuming him. Not only that but he is vain too, so to be changed into something so horryifing it breaks something else in him, it gives him the idea that no one could want him now, he cant make people do as he says like this, he doesnt know himself and now no one would want to know him anyways. The more he changes the more he loses his sense of self, its not only him, he was so many people it feels weird to be just him, it doesnt fit anymore, so through the story he starts to use they until its what he mainly uses at the end, because he grows and its happy with it by the very end.

His body changes when he doubts himself, the more time it passes the more he forgets. Now the main reason he didnt become a puddle of ink and die, was because as i mentioned he thought about being alone, and it made him think of Peter, that was his last connection, the last thread to a humanity he wasnt sure he still had. When he thinks that he loves him, even if a little, its enough to let him move.

That small lifeline is what actually saved him and what kept him more or less stable for longer that he would have otherwise. Same goes to Peter whos last action before becoming one with his siblings was pick up the phone, the same though went through him, its why even if he was already at the brink of being melded he kept himself alive for longer.

Then there was the idea of copies.

Because, eyes? just the eyes?? I know it works with supernatural energy but, the doubt, the idea or posibility that Jonah Magnus actually died the moment he transplanted his eyes the first time and that Beholding merely put the copied memories of Jonah that it reatained into the new body was such a good concept, i have a special love for it, to not be sure if you are you, but ultimately chosing to live your life despite knowing that you may not be the real one.

I like to point out at the end that he does, that he is the original and that he is not a copy but... its not really proof, Jonah wants to believe it is. Wether is true or not? Thats up to anyone.

Also his monster concept, i toyed with a few options, and ended up adding it somewhat in the final product, originally he was going to be sort of an owl monster sort of mixed with a cat, no not for the joke, i saw really nice fanart of owlcats and i was in love. But as it is i went with something similar to his body in the afterlife beach party.

Instead of tar it was the ink of the letters he wrote, the static remains because he doesnt know his face anymore and he wont again. The fur... i just wanted something nice for later when Peter made his appearence, less sticky more fluffy. 8 arms like a spider, more eyes because of beholding- you get it.

Speaking of Peter!!

Here is the deal, i know or at least believe that the curruption? Is the oposite of the lonely and viceversa. Wanting to be alone vs being consumed by what you love? Perfect.

So the Lukases become amalgamations of fog trapped in a hive mind that they cant escape from. Forced to be together and then to be alone once someone manages to impose themselves like Nathaniel did. Peter could have theorically left his siblings become him, after Elias saw them, but in this, the closenes they shared was enought that he could not do it. <3<3

I wanted to play with the fact that being stuck with so many people, mainly his sisters while slowly melding into one, made him switch from pronouns feeling comfortable in all of them. Lydia, Judith and Clara were all nice and accidentaly he wanted to feel that nice, so he switches more often to her. It too, because at one point he was litreally nothing since the rest were rather happy being one.

Reality check comes and they all realize that, oh shit we fucked him up. Hence the road trip, unfortunately the melding was inevitable, either they became one or someone took charge. Still it gives them time to bond too, which adds to the decision to let them stay with him despite everything. Peter plays into a similar idea, but from a different perspective, you lose yoursef but become a different person. Luka is all of them being at peace with being one, being happy and wanting the same thing, but still mantaining some way to be apart. If i was being sappy i would liken it to a fusion in Steven Universe.

It wasnt as such at first, but later once Peter is the main body they can do it with less fear of dissapearing. It is also true that his feelings bleed out onto them and likewise to him. Its hard being a single being while simultaniously be 5 people in one.

They do love Elias, except for Clara who is mostly just enjoying the company while judging everyones tastes. It is also true that if this hadnt happened they would never have tried it. But life works oddly. Plus they are happy.

The world cant be fixed, but life sort of goes on and people adjust as they can.

Final note? I really, reeeeally wanted to have JME corpses just drop and have everyone freak out. There was a brief idea of having them alive and react to what they did to the world, but i did not want to deal with that many explanations. So yeah, they are dead.

AGAIN SORRY FOR GOING OFF!!! I NEED TO BE STOPPED.

D:

If you want to ask something in particular go ahead i have the ideas still fresh for this one in my head.

[thotsforvillainrights]

Could we Chisaki/Kurono/Mimic/Toya/Nemoto with a s/o who is ginger, and has blue eyes, which is really rare ? I am ginger myself, and i never see something about us, and it would be amazing if you would write about it !

(I'd like to first start by saying you are probably way gorgeous. I can see it in my head through the description. Secondly this is one of the more specific requests I wont be changing it. If you might not fit into it, sorry in advance!)

~Ginger Hair, Blue Eyed S/O~

~Overhaul~

-When he found you one day in public, he swore you just weren't real. Sure there were foreigners in Japan but he had never seen someone naturally with your hair and eye color at the same time. He wanted so badly to speak with you, but he's never really done this before. So he just decided against it. Unfortunately, you stayed on his mind morning, noon, and night. What if I never see them again??? He was pretty close to tracking you down with his resources until he heard the doorbell ring. Because he was on the surface sipping tea with Pops, he heard it pretty easily. "I'll get it" He said as he left the room quietly. There you were, delivering the food they ordered earlier. He almost collapsed! Lucky for him this was your last order of the day, and when Pops came out and saw his son acting like this, he knew immediately that the young man was in love for the first time. Pops asked you to come later for dinner after you clock out. You agreed and Kai had to manage his emotions of he'd scream.

~Chronostasis~

-Probably met you while he was away on business overseas. While he was supposed to be rooting the Hassaikai drugs in your country, he ended up becoming interested in you instead. He would go on dates with you while the lower members that came with him handled the work. When it came time for him to leave at the end of the month, he gave you his number to keep in contact. You two kept a long distance relationship going for the very longest until you finally caved and asked him to let you live with him. He replied "I've been wanting you here forever now. I'm sending money for the ticket. Be safe y/n, I hope to see you soon baby."

~Mimic~

-Joi was in his normal form while he stood in line at the post office. He needed to mail something off before he could leave and enjoy the rest of his off day, but the line felt like it wasnt moving. He was starting to get frustrated until he heard a soft "excuse me" from behind him. He was fuming until he turned around and saw your face. Suddenly felt a weight lift from his shoulders. While you were busy asking him for directions, he was lost in your eyes. Then the empty weight on his shoulders were replaced with nervousness for the first time. He was talking to a very gorgeous person and had no idea how to say something without freaking you out. He settled for giving you directions but when you asked him to accompany you for lunch, he felt his head spin. I'm gonna be honest...You two ended up dating officially after 3 months of constantly seeing each other. His favorite part is the fact that he didn't need to keep his constant form to impress you. In whatever form he took, you still love and respect him.

~Setsuno~

-Its hard to say how exactly you two got together but it was somewhere along the lines of a romantic comedy movie lol. Once together, he explains to you everyday that he isn't just interested in your looks. He wants you to know his love for you is based mainly on your personality. Your beauty is both inside and out, and he doesnt feel like he deserves it most of the time. He spends a lot of time taking dozens of candid photos of you to set as his phone wallpaper. Other times he admires you without saying a word. You can see the love in his eyes though. He might give you a cute nickname once he decides what to settle with.

~Nemouto~

-To him you are like a diamond amongst other gemstones. You're unique to him, one of a kind as far as he's ever seen in real life. He often finds himself accidentally fawning over you even when he's at work as well. It's a whole lot of "I wonder what y/n is doing today?" And "Goddness, y/n looked absolutely beautiful today. Like something unreal for this planet." Everyone is getting a little tired of it honestly. No offense! They love you, but Nemouto is constantly blabbing about you instead of holding a conversation about anything else. You have to tell him to tone it back a bit before he actually does. Another thing is that he gifts you multiple orange items as a tribute to your hair. His tribute to your eyes goes the same way. (Sorry if it's not your favorite colors! Nemoto goes a little wild sometimes). He's in the 'most likely to shoot someone for talking bad about your appearance' club.

»—————————–———————————————————–✄

TIp Jar: https://cash.app/$YuTakeyama

[hxseok-honee]

i found | part 22

a/n: i wish i could tell you that i was in my right mind when i wrote this but we all know i wasnt - you can really see the point when i stopped listening to cute songs from the playlist and started to listening to Trampoline smh. hope you like it! 

previous | next

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“Listen, all I’m saying is that if we all pitched in a little and made a book of study materials for the NEWT exams, we could make so much fucking money selling copies to all the seventh years!” Everyone groans at Hoseok as he continues to push his idea on them. They’re rushing into the Three Broomsticks, trying their best to get out of the cold. Making their way inside, Taehyung pushes past the insane amount of people in the room to snag the last open booth by the wall. He’s angered a few people on his way, but it’s nothing a charming smile can’t fix. The rest of the group makes their way over to him, Y/n sandwiched safely between Jin and Jimin in their little march to the table.

She’s almost there when someone bumps into her from the side, sending her flying into Jin’s back. Clinging to him and laughing brightly, she brushes off the young student apologizing to her and waddles the rest of the way to her seat, sliding into the booth behind Jin. She’s about to thank him dramatically for having such a large frame, but her phone buzzes in her coat pocket as she’s opening her mouth. Pulling the device out, her eyes barely skim over the name of the sender before she’s unlocking her phone and opening the message, a soft smile gracing her features.

coordinated as always, I see

Glancing at the other tables in her line of sight, her gaze scans the room until it locks onto someone who’s already looking her way. Yoongi’s sitting in the furthest corner he could find, occupying a small booth meant for two people. He’s got his bag on the table, his books spread out and a half-empty butterbeer cradled securely in his hand. He looks like he’s been there for quite a while, comfortable with staying in his little space for a long time. Once they make eye contact, he raises an eyebrow at her, his eyes bright with amusement as he recalls how she almost just wiped out in front of everyone.

Tearing his eyes from her own in case someone happens to notice, he brings his gaze back down to his phone, seeing that she’s typing out a response already.

“iM noT t H a T muCH oF a rEcluSE” whatever headass, you look like you’re going to die alone in that corner- what’re you even reading anyway?

Covering his mouth to muffle the laugh that’s threatening to come out, he types a quick response and goes back to his book, tossing his phone onto the table and glaring lazily at anyone who comes too close to him while he reads.

just some dumb legilimency book my dad sent me- he wants me to brush up on my skills apparently

Scrunching up her features, she types a quick response before looking at how he glances at the screen once it lights up.

ah yes, just some light reading then

Y/n watches as he laughs to himself, and she wishes greatly that she could hear it, but she’s already turning back to her friends in an attempt not to be obvious. When she glances up at the boys, however, they’re all giving her the same look.

“What? Do I have something on my face?” Namjoon rolls his eyes at her, using his chin to point in Yoongi’s direction.

“Why don’t you go talk to him?” She gives him a hard stare, turning her gaze dramatically to land on Jungkook, who smiles awkwardly at her.

“Maybe because if anyone were to see me interacting with Yoongi in a friendly way, they’ll all react the same way this brat did?” Jungkook’s smile grows more awkward.

“That’s me, I’m the brat.” Hoseok reaches over to ruffle his hair affectionately as Taehyung drops his head onto his boyfriend’s shoulder. Y/n finds herself smiling at her boys, realizing how much different they’re acting about Yoongi even just a week after she’s forgiven them. She’s seen both Jin and Hoseok acknowledge Yoongi subtly in potions- a simple head nod whenever he walks into the room, but it’s better than nothing- and Yoongi himself mentioned that Jimin even smiled at him once in the corridor, but he swears Jimin mistook him for someone else. She’s happy the boys are listening to her and taking her feelings into consideration, even if they don’t particularly trust him yet.

Looking at Jimin beside her and pinching his face lovingly, she laughs when he complains and finds herself glancing over at the far corner almost out of some uncontrollable instinct. When she locates Yoongi’s form, however, she finds that he’s already looking at her, a small smile lingering on his lips as he watches her. For a second, she thinks he’s texted her again and is waiting for a response, but when they make eye contact he looks away so fast that she wonders if he was even looking in the first place. She watches as he raises his glass to his lips before pausing, staring down into it before grimacing and placing it on the table. She realizes it’s empty, and it’s obvious by the way he glances unhappily at the bar that he’s not looking forward to getting up and ordering another one. Once he goes back to his book, Y/n nudges Jimin, pushing him out of his seat so that she can climb out of the booth. Glancing over her shoulder at the guys, she calls back to them lazily as she starts to walk.

“This round’s on me!” She hears them all cheer as she’s leaving, and she can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of her. Pushing past the crowd and finally managing to perch herself on a bar stool, she catches the attention of one of the bartenders.

In the time that she’s left, Yoongi is flipping through his book absentmindedly, sighing at the fact that all his butterbeer is gone. Finally leaning back into the wall of the booth, he chances a quick glance over at Y/n’s booth, only to find her missing. Eyes flitting across the room, he wonders if she’s just gone to the bathroom when he catches sight of a pair of shoes he recognizes. The rest of the person is blocked from view by the crowd, but as he watches the owner of the shoes swing their legs almost childishly and notices that one of their shoelaces is untied, he smiles to himself, knowing instinctively that it’s her.

It’s always the left one… You’d think by now she’d have fallen enough times to learn her lesson.

Shaking his head, yet another soft smile on his lips, he pulls his gaze away from her, intending to go back to his book, but he locks eyes with someone before he can. Jin’s staring at him, a knowing smile on his face as he watches the Slytherin look for his best friend. He watches the way Yoongi searches with a little too much determination to just be curiosity, watches as he finds her when it really should have been impossible. He watches as Yoongi’s features soften unconsciously, and he knows the guy is hooked. And if Yoongi wasn’t being obvious enough, the way his eyes widen and he looks away when he realizes he’s been caught by Jin gives it away completely.

Jin watches for just a little longer, taking in just how nervous the Slytherin looks as he flips mechanically through his book, and he wonders if Y/n’s picked up on any of it or if she’s too caught in her own feelings to notice just how clear everything is. Just in time, Y/n returns to the table to break his train of thought, carrying two glasses in each hand as a random 6th year Hufflepuff girl follows behind her, carrying the rest. Setting everything down, Y/n turns back to the girl with a sweet smile.

“Thanks, Claire! I don’t know what I would have done without you-” The girl laughs brightly, shaking her head.

“It’s no problem. I watched you contemplate carrying all eight at once and I knew it was just going to end up being a huge mess.” The boys all groan, the thought of Y/n spilling eight butterbeers crossing their minds at once. Y/n glares at them after she’s waved the girl off, sitting in Jimin’s old spot at the end since he’s taken hers.

They all stay there for a while, drinking and laughing as they enjoy their day off together. Only after they’ve convinced Namjoon to down the rest of his drink all at once and laughed so hard they thought they would cry when some of it came out of his nose did they decide to head out, following the routine they’ve had since they were 3rd years. Just as they’re walking out, one of the bartenders passes them, smiling politely at Y/n. The same bartender makes his way over to Yoongi, who had spent the last half hour wondering if he should order another drink or just leave. Yoongi glances up as the man approaches him and sets a full drink on the table.

“Uh… I didn’t order this…” The man smiles at him, pointing at the empty booth once occupied by Y/n and her friends.

“The young lady who was sitting there earlier ordered it for you. It’s already been paid for.” Yoongi’s only noticing now that she’s left, actually having gotten into reading his book for a while. Glancing up at the bartender, he smiles awkwardly and asks for a to-go cup as he packs his bag.

-

Honeydukes is just as crowded as the Three Broomsticks, if not more. Y/n immediately gets separated from the boys when they enter the store, each of them going in different directions to grab their candy hauls for Winter Holiday. Y/n heads straight for the giant pile of peppermint toads, hearing the sound of Jin already starting to argue with Hoseok over a pack of jelly slugs. They’re there for a while, each of them piling up on way more candy than they can handle. Y/n doesn’t even see Yoongi make his way through the door, too busy examining a pack of licorice wands. He almost laughs when she makes a face at the item and puts it back, and he catches a glimpse into her basket as her name is called by Jungkook and she’s passing right by him.

He chuckles to himself at how focused she is, unable to process her surroundings when she’s on a mission. He wanders the store a little longer, grabbing a few things he knows he likes- mainly simple chocolate bars and a few sugar quills- before making his way to the counter. When he approaches the clerk, he waits until his candy is bagged and he’s handed over enough money to clear his throat, catching the young woman’s attention. Pulling out his phone and scrolling through his photos until he finds the one he’s looking for, he shows her the screen. It’s a photo of himself, but there’s someone next to him. Y/n has her head on his shoulder and her eyes are closed, having fallen asleep after a particularly long night talking at the astronomy tower. Yoongi’s smiling sweetly in the photo, but before the clerk can see too much of that part, the photo’s been zoomed in to focus on Y/n.

“Uhm, there’s a girl here right now- this girl, I mean. She’s hard to see right now because there’s so many people here, but she’s carrying a basket filled to the top with peppermint toads and chocolate wands- I’d like to pay for her items if I could.” The woman looks a bit shocked, wondering just who this guy is, but she nods politely as she tries to estimate how much it would cost. Yoongi only adds to her curiosities about him when he pulls out his wallet and hands her a handful of galleons, mumbling that she’s probably still shopping but that it should be enough to cover everything. Cocking his head to the side and staring into his wallet as the clerk stands there with an open hand full of galleons, he hums to himself and pulls out a handful of sickles, placing them into her hand with a smile and a quick comment to just keep the change.

“Ah, I would also really appreciate it if you didn’t tell her it was me…” The woman nods, finally giving up on figuring him out, and thanks him for his purchase as he grabs his bag of candy worth less than even half a galleon and smiles awkwardly at her, turning on his heel and walking away.

When Y/n approaches the counter not even ten minutes later, lugging a very heavy basket at her side and complaining loudly to Taehyung about how much it was going to cost her, the woman smiles knowingly at her and starts bagging her items. Just as Y/n is pulling out her wallet, the woman addresses her.

“Actually, Miss, it’s all been taken care of already- here’s your receipt!” Y/n takes the receipt blankly, very confused at the fact that she didn’t just have to fork over half of her life’s savings. Staring down at the piece of paper, Taehyung complaining over her shoulder about how lucky she was, her eyes lock onto the amount that was paid.

“Huh?!”

-

After texting Yoongi several times and only receiving very vague responses, Y/n finds herself about to hunt the man down. She doesn’t mention anything to the boys, but Jin knows her well enough to realize by the way she’s looking around as they wander through the town that she’s looking for someone. He’s about to leave her to her aggressive searching when he sees a form he recognizes passing by the window of one of the shops on his left. Nudging Y/n gently, he points at the entrance of Tomes and Scrolls and gestures for her to follow his gaze. When she glances in and sees the silhouette of the man she’s looking for, she smiles gratefully up at Jin, calling out to the boys.

“Hey, I’m just going to head in here for a second! There’s a book I wanted to buy!” Thanking Jin when he takes her bag of sweets, she makes her way into the dimly lit shop, not hearing as Hoseok questions the rest of the group (“She reads?”).

The bell to the shop dings quietly when she enters the store, the clerk smiling at her as she passes him, happy to have a new customer. The store is essentially empty except for her and her target of attack, who at the moment is hidden from view. She makes her way slowly down the aisles, peering into each opening and searching for her friend. She’s starting to wonder as she’s reaching the last aisle if maybe both she and Jin were hallucinating when they saw Yoongi, but there, in the very back where she should have expected him, is the exact person she wanted to find.

He’s facing the shelf, a book open in his palm as he flips through it, his eyes steady as he skims the pages. A receipt for Honeydukes is peeking out of the corner of his bag, confirming her increasingly high suspicions. Walking up to him, completely unnoticed as he focuses on the book, she pulls the item out of his hand swiftly and suddenly.

Turning to face whoever decided to interrupt him, the look of irritation fades from his face as he realizes who it is. She’s staring down at the cover of his book, mumbling the title to herself.

“Moste Potente Potions?” Glancing back up at his face, she gestures to the book. “Isn’t this available in the library?” Yoongi smirks, grabbing it from her and tossing it gently back and forth in his hands.

“Indeed, Miss Y/l/n, it is. But it’s only in the restricted section, and - well, that’s just too much work, don’t you think? I’d have to return it at the end of term anyway, and I like writing in my books- but how are you on this fine afternoon?” She scoffs and steps toward him, forcing him to step back awkwardly as she continues to approach him. Eventually, his back is pressed firmly against the wall and he’s staring down into her eyes as she stares back steadily.

“Mister Min, who asked you to pay for my purchases at Honeydukes? And that much, no less?” Yoongi curses himself silently, mad that he wasn’t able to predict that she’d guess it was him. He reaches out in an attempt to ease her frustration, running a hand over her shoulder and down her arm before coming to a stop at her elbow. He leans down into her face, a sense of mild satisfaction running through him when her expression falters and she leans away a little bit. He thinks it’s funny that she wants to act tough, considering who he is. Coming just that much closer to her, he waits until she’s blinking rapidly, the heat in her cheeks very obvious, before he whispers softly to her.

“I do what I want, Y/n.” If their positioning wasn’t enough to fluster her, the authoritative tone of his voice, no matter how whispered and soft, is enough to set her skin on fire. But he doesn’t seem to be done. Internally, he’s screaming at himself to calm the fuck down, but externally he’s playing a game that she started- the only thing he shows is a smirk that tells her he’s turning the tables on her in this moment they have alone.

Wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her closer, he keeps whispering to her, using his other hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Just think of it as an early Christmas present. Would you accept it then?” When all she does is grumble about how annoying he is, he chuckles at her and turns slowly, forcing her back to the wall as he switches spots with her. Releasing her waist in favor of placing a hand on the wall next to her head, he brings the hard tone back to his voice, thankful that he’s had so many years to practice it and that it actually works on her.

“You’re so whiny, Y/n. Why are you making me out to be the bad guy when you paid for my drink earlier? You know I don’t like you doing things like that.” He reaches out beside him and drops the potions book on the shelf, using that hand to take hold of her chin and turn it so she’s looking him in the eye, unhappy with the way she’s been looking at anything that isn’t him. When he has her gaze, he keeps her there, wondering if she can see everything he’s feeling in the moment just by looking into his eyes.

Worried now that his own gaze makes him too vulnerable, he lowers his eyes, allowing them to come to a stop just under her nose. He has no idea that to her, all he’s done is gone from looking into her eyes to staring down at her lips. Not wanting to make the same mistake as last time, she forces herself to remain still, deciding instead to speak softly to him.

“I do what I want, Yoongi.” He watches her mouth move, watches as her lips speak his name, and he can’t tell if he’s more amused that she’s talking back to him or more frustrated by his own urge to kiss her. In an attempt to regain control of himself, he raises his gaze to meet hers, not realizing that once he locked eyes with her again, his self-control would only weaken. Thrown off by the way her gaze makes his heart lurch and his breath cut short, he finds himself glancing down at her lips again, trying to decide if he should make a move.

He’s in the process of falling apart when her soft hand comes to rest on his forearm, still propped up against the wall next to her head. She’s wrapped her fingers around his wrist and is staring openly into his eyes, and in any other situation it would be enough to push him over the edge. But before he can even move, the bell above the door to the shop rings out again, signaling another customer.

“Y/n! What the hell’s taking you so long in here?” The sounds of her friends making their way into the shop and greeting the clerk prompt her to realize exactly what they were about to do, if she had even read the signs right. Putting her hands on his chest and pushing him back gently, she ignores her pounding heart and brushes past him, whispering that she would see him later as she goes.

Yoongi watches her walk out into the open aisle, catching the attention of her friends as she claims that she couldn’t find the book she was looking for and that they should just leave. Once they’re gone, Yoongi is leaning heavily against the wall, sliding down to sit on the floor as he breathes heavily. Sinking his head into his hands, he curses softly to himself, thinking about everything that just happened.

What the fuck just happened?

[adhdebilitating]

I'm sitting here,

completely or close to completely fixated on the dirty-ass coffee table in front of me. I keep imagining I will see a cockroach, which not only of which I am extremely afraid, but that my fucking apartment building has an infestation, so that's probably why it's a problem in the first place. I managed to do some dishes(about seven forks and a plate) only to discover that we need more soap.

It's pretty bad when you're not even sure if it's ADHD. Can ADHD be completely debilitating? For the sake of this blog, let's say it can.

I never clean my apartment, which hilariously feels like an understatement. How do you clean less than never? I suppose I clean it a little more than that, but I'm the type of person that just accumulates mess everywhere I go. Recently due to cockroach terrors, I haven't been doing dishes as much. Ofc I have to tell myself, if I don't do the fucking dishes, they will come.

So I live in a 100 year old apartment whose halls resemble the Shining. Nothing really connects. The walls don't connect to the floor, the cabinets don't fully connect to the walls, the ceilings don't fully connect to the structures. Fuck my life, right? It's the best place I can THINK of for roaches. So many crevasses, leaky/flat out busted pipes, warm, dank environments...Perfect. And this bitch that's too scared/lazy to clean her apartment...like, there's an inch of dust and grime on most of the surfaces. Deep cleaning? Never heard of her.

Do you ever have executive dysfunction so bad, you can't even function? You're lucky if you can somehow trick or force yourself into doing something. The one thing I can almost always do is be on my phone. It's low energy as hell. Idk what it is. There's just this magic of ease that usually doesn't translate to real life.

I know, I know. I have to be exaggurating, right? Probably.

So right now I am on 20 mg of Buspirone, 450 mg of Wellbutrin(recently increased,) 2 mg of Abilify(honestly, I dont even know what it does at this point.) It's about seven pills, which isn't ideal, but you know. What are you going to do? Like, do they make Wellbutrin in 450 pills?

I javee absolutely no idea what I am doing in terms of treatment, pills or otherwise. I see my therapist once a week and I KNOW I need to go more. I need therapy. I need deep help. Meds aren't just magically going to fix everything, but I keep hinging all my hopes on that, too.

I read about people starting/finding the right meds and it is just eyeopening for them. Lifechanging. That's what I want.

As of right now, I wake up in the morning, take my meds, brush my teeth, and sit with my partner until they go to work a half hour later. From then on, I usually browse my phone or sometimes I play FFXIV for a little while until I remember I'm fucking too scared to do dungeons with randos.

I'm deathly afraid of judgment. From anyone. I know no one doles it out worse than me, but RSD makes judgment like...impossible to deal with. I just try to avoid it, period.

This doesn't extend to real life. I continue to sit on my ass most of the day, maybe take a two, three hour nap. I survey my filthy apartment and think about how overwhelming it is to clean. Sometimes, on a good day, I can manage to make myself do something. Even if it's just play FFXIV.

I'm wasting my life away. I tried going to school, but Soc 101 was too overwhelming. I dropped. I dropped and I was doing well, even though I started skipping classes. My teacher even asked me not to drop because I wasnt even struggling. I sabotaged it bc I couldn't fucking imagine constantly reading chapters, taking notes, and studying as much was required for tests. I dropped bc it was an extremely interactive class and I am not an extremely interactive person.

I got off topic. I forgot to tell you that the cockroaches favor the wall behind my sink, which again, doesn't fucking connect fully to the counter, so crevasse-topia. To make matters worse, I am constantly supplying them with water whenever I do the dishes and splash under the wall. They're mainly little.

Oh, so. I know. Why don't I contact my landlord about the roach problem? It's a problem the entire building has. Save gassing every room in the building, I don't know how they can really address the problem. I may know some semblance of sanctuary if I can move into my sister's lovely 9th floor apartment with a modern structural build, a dishwasher, a sink like a basin like you see in art classes, a washer and drier, thermostat, and a giant, deep bath tub- the kind where you can sink all the way up to your neck.

Ugh, I lust for it. I can only hope everything works out to get it.

I'm an extremely lucky, privileged person. I don't deny it and I feel immense guilt for having any problems at all when others are so much less fortunate.

[transrightsjimin]

i dont like to talk abt this much bc itll make me feel sad but i feel bad abt not remembering much of the concert itself but rather more all the interactions w other fans that i had and just everything happening that wasnt the concert itself. i had the same thing as w the two previous bts concerts i attended where i did think it was super good and laughed and nearly cried when thinking abt how much i love and will miss them but also most of the time i was, even while smiling, just thinking so much abt my depression and wishing i would feel MORE like just nothing ever feels real nd i hate it! i especially had that feeling this concert bc the members were so far away. i could finally see their entire bodies rather than sometimes the top of a head like at the previous two concerts, but they were still too far away to make out their features well so it took a few seconds to recognize e.g. who was standing at the front or w his back to us or smth and i had to look at the screens more which was nicely filmed (w cameras sometimes switching late to a member but thats all) but that wasnt the REAL them abd i wanted to look at that and just. man at every concert i attended thus far i just couldnt see shit in one way or another. maybe i saw them the best at the first concert. i mean i saw them the best at the interview and lottery thingy at kcon paris where i won the lottery and honestly? i think that kind of ruined my experience to some extent. i hate fans who want to seek only attention (or as annoying twt ppl call it, "wanting to be y/n") but i am a super needy person nd this fan interaction has given me unrealistic expectations and they were so CLOSE and VISIBLE the first time i saw them snd that just wasnt the case in the concerts like. they were there and i was there but it didnt seem to be in the same place nor irl. and time passed so fast in the paris concert! the amsterdam one seemed to take ages but that was bc i was dead exhausted but at bts stade de france the 3 hours seemed to pass within an hour and it was just so fast and i didnt know mikrokosmos was the final somg so i was li e wait why are they bowing?? nd i wanted to cry so bad, maybe crying wouldve made me feel more alive. i just want to feel alive and i guess i want bts to give me that feeling and they do, but when im at their amazing concerts i can only think abt how depressed i am and how much my depression ruins everything and fuck im crying. i truly had an amazing trip and the concert was great, i just wished i truly FELT it was great! maybe im just also remembering mainly the bad stuff bc of depression. and i filmed so much of the concert so i could look back at it again and while i did try to look at them irl at the same time, it was hard to balance my phone and army bomb and flag and watch them irl and on their screens and the fans and just. i didnt know where to look and i could only see them well on the big screens. man fuck depression. my new therapist recommended me mindfulness apps and first i thought oh god and i still dont truly understand the floaty(?) abstract concept that no one seems to b able to reply but shes right, it would help me a lot to just be able to focus on one thing only and live more in the moment. it's just hard when youre depressed and autistic and stressed / anxious and very likely have adhd. man i needed this good cry. i want to see bts again and again and again. i want to go back. i wish i went for two days. i wish it wasnt windy so jungkook could fly in the air towards us and bts could jump on the bouncy castle. i wish we managed to do the two singing fan projects. i wish i wasnt so fucking sad while seeing my favourite boys in the world.

[gladerwolfstarkimagines]

Imagine being patricks little sister and the loser club being scared of you. Beverly tries to befriend you but richie isnt happy.

——

Being the little sister of a protective bully was always going to be difficult. Half the kids hated you the other half of kids sucked up to you. Your brother was Patrick Hocksteader, part of henrys crew of dickheads. Ever since he walked you to school on your first day people treated you as his sister not as your own person. People you’d know since you were 5 were now too scared to talk to you let alone be friends with you. The only kids who wanted to be your friend were the kids as bad as Henry who assumed you were as bad as your brother. At first you didnt mind being friends these kids, having crap friends was better than none? But as the year went your dislike for them grew, especially when you saw what they did to the other kids. It took you a whole year to realise it was better to eat lunch alone than with kids who got a kick out of teasing 10 year olds.

Your old “friends” took you leaving as an insult but as you were Patrick’s sister never dared approached you on the subject. The only teased from afar and never up close. All the other kids didnt know what to do. They saw you ditching the group of assholes as a good thing but were still scared of you brother. Seeing it as too much hassle to talk to you all the kids just pretended you didnt exist. You could go days without speaking at school. You’d learn and eat in silence, never speaking to anyone after learning long ago there’s no point in trying to make friends. Patrick ignore this and all his friends banished the rumours you were a loner, leaving you as a pointless person in school.

On your first day back at school after the summer you had science with a new class and a new seatig plan. The teacher sat you next to beverly. Youd know beverly partially, as in you heard a lot about her, mainly from henry, but knew it wasnt true. Your first science assignment in your new seat was to do a project with your partner, which unfortunately for you required talking.

“Hi” she smiled “im Beverly”. “I know…i mean yeah I’ve seen you…I’m y/n”. Beverly grinned at your babbling. You weren’t used to people being nice to you and found it intimidating. You worked hard on the project in class but when the week was up you still hadn’t finished it. You offered to take it home and finish it but beverly said that wasn’t fair and suggested you meet up to finish it. You didn’t want beverly around at yours, henry would be there and well it would t be pretty. Beverly sensed this and asked why didn’t you meet up at the park tomorrow at 12. You agreed and beverly grinned when you said you’d come. “Ill see you there” she smiled patting your arm before she hurried away.

You were ten minutes late to the park and you were very nervous. You weren’t completely sure beverly was going to show. You’d convinced yourself she was just teasing you, she wasn’t really being nice to you, nobody was unless they wanted something from you. You arrived at your agreed spot and looked around. You felt a sinking feeling in your stomach as you couldn’t see her. Embarrassment rushed through you as you felt colour rise into your cheeks. “Y/n”. You turned around and to your surprise beverly marsh stood before you. “Your here” beverly smiled. It took you a while to talk and when you did all you could do was stutter. “Beverly….hi…hi im yeah, sorry im late”. Beverly grinned telling you it didn’t matter.

You were both laid on the floor staring up at the sky. Youd finished the project hours ago but it was such a nice day you both decided to stay for a while. Beverly was so nice to you that you decided she must be a nice person. You were still very cautious of her but came t the conclusion that you liked her. Beverly laughed “i love that book but did you hear about the movie?”. Your turned as you heard people call to beverly, your heart sinking as you saw it was bill and the loser club. They ditched their bikes and stopped when they saw you sat next to her. Bill recovered the fastest “hey bev weve been looking all over for you”. “Ow me and y/n had a science project and then decided to hang out for a bit”. “Ow cool” bill nodded sitting next to beverly. Stan smiled at you sitting down next to bill but thats where the pleasantries ended. The others all sat behind bill and stan, not even near you, richie and eddie sitting the furthest away. The other four seemed to not even want to breathe in your presence and treated the situation as if beverly had befriended a grenade. Stan and bill felt bad and chatted with beverly about random things but made sure to include you. You noticed the looks richie was shooting bill and stan so decided to leave. “Thanks for today beverly but i think im gonna go now”. “Aw really?” Beverly asked “are you sure you cant stay?”. “Ow i don’t wanna intrude” you shrugged. “Your not” stan smiled “were just hanging out”. Richie and eddie threw each other looks and you glanced to them making them go red. “No i really should go”. “Well it was nice meeting you” bill smiled and stan nodded “bye”. The others echoed a bye and you walked away when beverly caught you up. “Hey y/n” she said “it was real fun hanging out with you today”. You smiled “i enjoyed it too”. She grinned “so were going to the lake tomorrow and i wanted to know if you wanted to come with”. “I don’t think your friends would like that very much” you laughed awkwardly. “Ow no stan and bill are cool with it and the others don’t mind really there just boys”. “Its fine really im busy tomorrow” you told her “maybe another time”. “Aw okay but heres my number” she said writing it on your wrist “call me if you want to hang out or anything”.

A few days and you managed to use your compulsive over thinking to convince yourself that beverly was only being nice to you because of your brother and that she didnt really like you. And so you never called her not until your mom brought up the fact you hadn’t been out of the house on weekends for 2 months. Your dad had got 4 free tickets for a fun fair from work and your mom thought it would be a great idea for you to take some friends. You said you would just to please her but had no intention of going. You decided to give them to beverly so rang her. You were so nervous you actually jumped when she picked up the phone. “Hello beverly…its y/n” you said meekly. “Y/n” beverly said happily “ive been wondering if you’d call how are you?”. “Im good erm listen i have some free rickets to a funfair and i wondered if you wanted them”. “Dont you want them?” Beverly asked. “Well…erm i haven’t been in years and just thought you’d like the tickets and could go have fun”. Beverly paused for a moment and then agreed “the funfair would be fun which is why i think you should come”. “But i only have 4 tickets”. “Hey thats cool me and you could go and then bill and Stan said for ages they’ve wanted to go too, wed have so much fun”. You hesitated and beverly could sense your nerves. “Listen i know richie and eddie were dicks the other week but i promise stan and bill arent like that i promise wed have fun”. “Okay” you said kicking yourself. “Really?” Beverly asked “awesome”. You laughed “so when do you wanna go?”.

You and beverly walked to bills house on your way to the funfair. Him and stan were waiting outside and they both greeted you like your brother wasn’t a prick which you appreciated. Stan smiled at you “hey y/n thanks so much for the tickets”. “Yeah its real cool how your dad them for free”. Bill agreed “Ow its nothing” you shrugged and beverly steered you all in the direction of the funfair. Stan and bill were as nice to you as beverly and you found they were nice to talk to. You were soon confident enough to chat to them and you found you had lots in common with them. You were starting to actually look forward to the fun fair until you spotted richie and the others up ahead.

“There you you shitheads are my grandmother walks faster than you”. “Richie?” Stan asked “what the hell are you doing here?”. “Heard you were going to the funfair and me eddie ben and mike thought that sounds like a great idea”. “Ow cool” bill said but beverly and stan looked angry. As you lined up for tickets stan said something to richie who replied “i can do what i want alright”. You used your free tickets and got the four of you in and stood awkwardly by beverly. “so what do you want to do?” She asked “did we say ghost train first?”. “Yeah” stan laughed reluctantly “come on lets get it over with”. “So death drop first yeah?” Richie asked separating bill and Stan from you. “come on bill you’ve got to try it with us, i thought you could come with me and ben”. “And stan you could do with me and mike” eddie finished. Bill stuttered trying to make everyone happy but stan shook his head “nah thats okay you all go together were gonna go this way”. Richie laughed “is someone a chicken”. “No someones pissed because you werent invited but classic Richie you had to show up”. Bill grabbed stan “okay we’ll see you around bye guys”. Richie gave up and let you go glaring until you were out of sight. “Sorry hes such a dick” stan said and you shook your head “hey its okay dont worry about it”. “Yeah lets just forget about them and have fun okay?” Beverly asked and you smiled.

An hour later and you actually having fun. Richie and Eddie kept appearing trying to get Stan and bill to join them but the boys kept refusing. Even after you’d told all three of them they could if they wanted to. Stan was the first to respond and told you he didn’t want you to leave which made you embarrassed. You decided you liked Stan almost as much as beverly and felt comfortable with all of them. You were walking across the grass when all 3 of them stopped and looked behind you. You followed their gaze and saw it landed on Henry. Henry smirked as he saw them and then saw you. You saw him look to your brother and Patrick said something to him. Henry shook his head and Patrick stood up looking angry. Henry went to walk towards you but Patrick grabbed his arm. You could see they were arguing when eventually henry slunk off away from you. Patrick looked up at you and then followed his friend. “Wow” Stan said “your brother made Henry back off”. “Yeah well my brother isn’t always a complete dick”. Beverly smiled “i can see that, it was nice of him”. You looked down awkwardly and bill cut in. “Hey y/n wa…wa…want to go on the bumper ca…ars”. You nodded at him gratefully and walked towards them.

All night patrick managed to control henry and keep him from going near you and the others but the same couldnt be said for richie and the rest. You heard yells come around the back of a rollercoaster and Stan frowned. “That sounds like ben”. A string of curses followed by a grunt told you richie was there too. You ran around to the back and saw your brother and his friends beating richie eddie mike and ben up. Patrick had richie against a wall amd had his knife to his cheek. Patrick had eddie in a headlock and the others two laughed as he went through eddies bag. Ben was on the floor with one of the guys foot his chest and mike was trying to help eddie. Patrick shoved mike on the floor and henry howled with laughter. “You're an asshole you know that?” Richie spat. Henry laughed “you know eye surgery can help you see better, why don’t why try that?” He asked looking at his knife. “Henry stop” you yelled running forward. You yanked his arm away and stepped between him and Richie. “Back off y/n” he said “just walk away”. “No you need to leave these guys alone now!”. “Y/n” Patrick said “just go away okay, these people aren’t your friends”. “So its fine for you to beat them up? No they don’t deserve that its not fair”. “Okay y/n if you don’t move ill beat you up too” henry snarled. “You’re not touching my sister” Patrick yelled. “I will if she doesn’t move”. “If you even try to touch her” Patrick said yanking henry away from you. Henry turned around and looked at him “what?”. “I said you just try to touch her”. “Look i know shes family but shes being a bitch”. “If she says we cant touch them then we cant, were not hurting my sister, got it?”. Henry squared up to Patrick and time seemed to slow down as they stared at one another. Eventually henry sighed “lets get out of here, its lame”. Henry barged Patrick and walked away. Patrick followed him and so did the others. You let out your breath and turned around to Richie. You held out a hand to help him up “you okay?”. “Why did you do that?” He asked after you’d yanked him up. “Because i wanted to” you shrugged. “But you didn’t have to. Nobody asked you to”. “Richie for god sake cant you just be grateful!” Stan spat. “No I’ve been nothing but rude to her all night, i didn’t include you i tried to ruin your night so why would you help me?”. “I might be my brothers sister but that doesn’t mean i like what he does” you frowned. “But still like you could’ve easily have just walked away and let them beat me up after how i acted, i deserved it”. “People always act weird because of my brother” you shrugged “so no offence but if you think how you acted tonight is anything special your wrong”. Richie looked down embarrassed “Well thanks for helping me not get my ass kicked”. “Its okay” you shrugged. “And I’m sorry for being such a dick to you”. You laughed “like i said its nothing major”. “Still though its not right” Richie said awkwardly. “No its not” beverly said “You shouldn’t have to take that”. “Well i know its not great but like what can i do?” You asked “i cant change how people feel about me”. The others didn’t really know how to reply to that and looked down. “No i know you cant, trust me i do” beverly nodded “but you don’t have to go through it alone” she smiled “not anymore”. “What?” You asked. “Yeah” Richie nodded “were not scared of you anymore, i wont act like i did again i promise, you can hang around with us…i mean if you want”. “You don’t have to do this” you frowned. “No y/n” Stan said “we mean it, we like you”. You smiled. Bill nodded “yeah we do” he smiled. You grinned and beverly laughed putting an arm around you “so its decided”. “Welcome to the losers club” Richie announced.

[hyunjin-writes]

photographer!kihyun au

i,,, have had a thing for photographer kihyun for like,,,eVer sinCE i started stanning him,,,

and since there’s not much out there fics/aus about photographer kihyun

/rolls sleeve/

ok but photographer!kihyun would be both cool and cute i kid u not

the type to always???? ALWAYS!!!! have his camera by his side; either slung on his arm or in his backpack

there was this one time he forgot to bring his camera along and his friends thought something happened to him or the camera

“is ur camera oKay??????r YOU okay????” “why wouldn’t they be okay and im here aren’t i?”

turns out he just forgot to charge the batteries overnight shdsdsj clumsy

but how much do you wanna bet he can’t sit still without his camera by his side?

“yOo kihYUN sTop FidgEting” “i cant help it!!!!i’m so used to have my camera with me i-”

his camera is basically his wife,, but anyways moving on,

the type to be gone during the weekends to take short trips to the beach or countryside for pictures

“hey kihyun are you free this weekend” “can’t im going to the beach” “hey ki-” “CANT i have to go to the neighbouring city”

but his pictures ended up being to die for so it’s forgiven ;;

his phone wallpapers,,, would mostly b pictures of sceneries he took. Only on rare occasion it would be faces of people,,,, prob mainly bcs it was him who took it.

imagine him putting a picture of minhyuk because he loved the way the pic turned out and minhyuk saw,,,

“omg ki i didn’t know u liked me that much ;”^ )” “i  DONT. the pic just turned out nic-” “AWWW SHUSH I Like Me Too ;););)” “sdhjsdhjskajhskja remind me to not take a pic of u ever again”

“no way u like the way he poses for pics too much to not take pics of him” - prob shownu

“,,,,,, riTe”

its tru tho kihyun is picky when it comes to his pictures, especially potraits and he always complains about how its so hard to take pics of shownu

“shownu u do know you can breathe like normal, right?”

but anyways,

his instagram!!!!

god his instagram would b aesthetically pleasing nd like, low quality-ly hq,,

pics from his trips? pics from his coffee stops? pics of mx hanging out? you got them all!

but like,, what’s hard to see in his feed is probably his selfie since he takes bad selfies according to wonho and minhyuk

“i  DO NOT. take bad selfies” - says kihyun as he poses the same pose for 2938482 selfies with the same angle

sighs

so instead of uploading his selfies, the only pictures that would have his face in it would be the candids the boys took of him

from when he’s drinking coffees, or from when he’s taking pictures,,,

mostly r pics of him taking pictures w his camera since he find himself looking extra cool doing those

but like,,, since most of his pics r candids, u can hardly see his face since it’s always being covered w camera or looking down

also since most pics r from  the boys, u could expect to see minhyuk or wonho annoyingly commenting on his pics

“omg what a cool pic i wonder who took them” “i bet the photographer’s good looking tell him i’m a fan of him!”

“im  Blocking. both of u”

ok but you,,,, you do know kihyun, sort of

that is if u consider being friends with changkyun and hearing changkyun bragging about how good this one photographer friend is then yeah you do know kihyun

you follow him on instagram, but like,,, u never actually met him before??

tho judging on his ig pics he seems attractive but also seems like a snoob?? or a bit cocky?? based on his comments so idk,, u just dont really like those type of guys

but anyways, you’re studying filming major in school so you’re always standing behind the camera or screens instead,

but you’re been told a handful of time that you have enough visuals to be a model,, it DID crossed ur mind but like???me??? a model??? must b mad enough to do  That,  so u didnt

so you’re a close friends with changkyun, and you two are always hanging out when kyun ain’t hanging out w mx

so when you’re out together, it’s always u who takes kyun’s pictures and you’re no photography student, but you could say your pics r decent (since you actually like photography as well,)

changkyun loves!!!! ur pic and he always say that you would bond well with kihyun since the two of you have similar taste

youre like  “naaaaah no thx” and kyun just shrugs bcs like okay then sure no fOrcing u

so u continue to hangout with changkyun with him mentioning about wanting the two of you meeting up but you always refusing

UNTIL 

one day you two were hanging out at the park, just casual and being a bunch of goofs when kyun said some of the mx boys r here and wants to meet up nd if its okay with you

“yeAH??? i mean i would love to meet them anyways especially minhyuk! i heard he’s kinda cool,,”

“yeah but there’s gonna be kihy-” changkyun before his words being interrupted by a hollering minhyuk from afar

you immediately recognize minhyuk based on his jumpy attitude and also wonho who’s following behind a sprinting minhyuk

minhyuk immediately pounced on changkyun and you like,, laughed at how done kyun looked

u suddenly heard some clicker sound beside u and when u turn, ur eyes meet w a pair of very??? beautiful??? eyes???

it took a few seconds but u then realized it was kihyun,, with his camera his hand,, like OF COURSE kihyun would b around taking pics

immediately introducing yourself to the boys, changkyun immediately said, “ah ki hyung, she’s the one who always took my cafe an d ootd pics”

youre like ?? but when u look at kihyun he was like O-o and was saying “yeah i sorta figured?? since u hardly hang out w anyone else anyways” but he wasnt even looking at u or anything,,,

“wow he really /is/ snobby,,,,” was what u thought at first since even after a few mins of hanging out at the park, he still wont meet ur eyes??? even when he’s talking to you or something??? wow   rood.

but like yea you guys hanged out for a while longer before u decided to leave the boys alone

so when you excused yourself, changkyun was like “yeah yeah sure i’ll see you later” but

kihyun seemed weirdly and surprisingly disappointed for someone who hardly made any eye contact w you through out the hour of hanging out

nd judging on his personality around the boys and on what changkyun told you, you doubt he’s actually  SHY

(in which he is but we’ll get to that later)

but anyways, kihyun was like: “you’re leaving already?”

“????y ea??? i have early classes tomorrow so,,”

“o right your filming classes”

???? ?you’re actually surprised that he knows??? but okay then

so like u go home and attend your classes like normal for almost a whole week, nothing unusual happened, and u doing ur usual routine,

like going to classes, having lunch w your friends and changkyun when he’s free, studying in the library,, and even going out during the afternoon for an hour of,,, walk

so here’s the thing

even when you’re a film student, you have a huge interest in photography, so,

every afternoon you would go out for an hour or two, just to walk around town, stopping once in a while to just take pictures.

people thought you go out for some exercises but l mao n O

you always have your small handy little camera by your side,, your loyal best friend.

so like it was a week??? after that meeting with kihyun and the other boys, but nothing happened,

you did saw kihyun around the campus once in a while,

but everytime your eyes locked, he would blin k for once or twice then quickly look away,

in WHICH, helped u to think that he’s really a snob

(u gH HE IS REALLY NOT but we’ll get there anyways,)

so like one afternoon you’re just walking around town, taking pictures like normal,

and you’re at this small park at the end of town,

its small, and not packed, just like how u like it,,

so you ended up just spending your afternoon there, taking pictures and stuff

nd after a while u spot a cute little kitten playing around, and of course u took pictures of it

the cat spotted you and it just ran towards you and soon,,

your camera was forgotten and you’re there,

just sitting on the ground and playing with the little kitten,,,

it was really peaceful, with just you and the kitten, and maybe some one or two people passing by, a couple sitting on a bench nearby,, but that’s just it

it’s not noisy or anything, just the way you like it,,

at least until u heard some sound of the flicker of a camera

looking around, you were expecting to see someone taking photos of views or the trees,, BUT

what you wasnt expecting was seeing a camera lens being pointed directly towards you,, just a few feet away from you,, and the kitten

you just stared at the camera,, nd the person behind the camera since you’re not really sure what to do

because like you’re not sure either to be mad or not?? since yea, it’s not nice to take other people’s pictures without permission but like,

you yourself have taken so many candid pictures of others,,, so??? u’re not exactly sure??

realizing they were caught, the person quickly lower down their camera and bow down their head slightly

but like you managed to catch their face and you just,,,: “kihyun???”

the person look up at you and with his round glasses on the bridge of his nose, his beanie covering his black hair, a simple round sweater hugging his figure,

you could easily tell it is indeed your campus’ infamous photographer, Mr. Yoo Kihyun

“what are you-”

“look, i’m sorry for taking your picture without permission it’s just that the settings was all so nice and the sunlight was on point, the kitten was active and you look really pretty so i just had to,, and like i hope u dont ask me to delete them??? because it’s really pretty,,, like i could show u if you don’t believe me it’s ReALLy nice!!! and-”

“l mao kihyun you’re babbling and yea of course you can keep them,”

“please dont tell me to- wait, what?? reaLLy???”

“yea h, i mean, as long as i look good in them tho”

“o- oh,, well,, u do look decent i guess???”

“don’t lie, i heard it when u said i looked pretty.”

“o h sh OOt”

CUE a cute blushing kihyun scratching his nape, trying to figure out how to cover up his honest words he blurted out a while ago,

but when he looked up trying to spit out some words about how it was the sun that helped you looked nice,, he sees you grinning at him while the little kitten still playing with your fingers,,,

and he thought,, oh screw it

“y-yeah,, well you always look good anyways, so nothings new”

and when he sees your cheeks slowly growing red, he was glad he said those words,,

he’d always thought you’re cute anyways, only he never actually brought up the guts to approach you properly

and now,, with you here for once smiling at him instead of looking at him as if he’s some kind of snob you hate, which he knows you thought of him that way before this,,

he decided he’s gonna be a  Man and not waste this chance with you

“but like, do you wanna see it though? the pictures, i mean.”

a/n : i might do a second part of this, who knows since i have a major big fat love for photographer!kihyun anyways! Also, newton was released today and photographer!kihyun made his appearance!!!! 

[topicprinter]

Hi all, I recently wrote this post about how Drip screwed over its most loyal customers and I thought perhaps /r/Entrepreneur would get value out of my lessons learned.----If you’re not familiar, Drip is email marketing software that’s pretty heavy on the marketing automation front. I won’t do them the courtesy of a link, so you’ll have to Google them if you want to check it out.They’ve been around since 2012 or so, founded by someone I trusted, but he sold the business to Leadpages a few years ago, and it’s been going downhill ever since.I’ve been using them for years as the backbone of two “side” businesses: IndieHive, which covers this website for freelancers and the related products and services that I sell, and Everleads, a curated lead generation site for freelance designers and developers.In 2016 and 2017, I really dug deep into Drip. I built out dozens of interconnected workflows to carefully shepherd my subscribers through various funnels and sequences with duplicate emails or annoying content that’s not relevant to them. I integrated my web front-end with their APIs so that I could customize the site for subscribers. I wrote bridging scripts to connect it to Mixpanel for analytics, and I used Zapier to hook Drip up to even more services. It was the heart of my entire business, and it was awesome.But throughout 2018, things started to go awry.I kept experiencing glitches in the workflows where people would get stuck on workflow steps that should be instant, like “remove tag”. Or people would end one workflow and start another, but not have any of the data that the first workflow had set. There were honestly dozens of these little glitches, but individually they were minor.Also troubling: deliverability started to slip. Not precipitously, and I can’t prove that it wasn’t just my emails, but I have heard from others that they were having issues with getting their emails into people’s inboxes in 2018.But the most egregious thing for all of this was that support was basically no help at all. I probably opened two dozen support requests in 2018 and I’m not sure they actually resolved a single one. We’d spend hours going back and forth so they could even understand the problem. Then they’d almost always say one of two things:“For a workaround, just insert a number of delays between steps in your workflows so that the system doesn’t get confused!” So all my workflows had little 5 minute delay steps to try and make sure things worked correctly. Which they still didn’t. Wtf.Or they’d just say they need to escalate to the developers and then I’d get an email weeks or months later from some random support engineer letting me know they were still looking into why the most basic functions of their software don’t work right. Awesome.Alarmed by this, I repeatedly researched alternatives throughout 2018, but nothing seemed worth going through the pain of migration and the risk of just having similar issues somewhere else. So I kept resolving to be patient with Drip and hope (pray) that they were hard at work at undoing whatever architectural disaster had led us here.And then…In early January 2019, while I was on a relaxing cruise with my wife for our 15th anniversary, I got an email from Drip:https://ryanwaggoner.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/drip-bullshit-pricing-email-2.pngSo basically: “Hey, we’re raising our prices in 12 days! You can keep your current price if you switch to an annual plan!”And if you read it carefully, there’s something pretty important missing from this email.It doesn’t say what the new pricing is**. Seriously wtf.**So I emailed to ask. They responded the next day (so now I have 11 days) to reveal they were doubling my monthly price.Drip raised my price from $184 / month to $368 / month with 12 days notice.That’s just about the worst way imaginable to treat your oldest and most loyal customers.And it was the last straw for me.Now, to be clear, I completely understand wanting to grow a company in a new direction, or thinking that you need to raise prices to reflect more value.But you don’t do it when your platform is half-broken, you don’t do it with 12 days notice, and you grandfather in existing customers, at least for long enough for them to migrate. Also, you tell them the price when you tell them that prices are rising.It’s hard to imagine how Drip could have been more disrespectful to their customer base than what they did here.So as of last month, I switched all my subscribers to ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign for Everleads and IndieHive, respectively. That’s thousands of dollars that Drip won’t be getting from me. I managed to get both setups completely migrated off just before their billing renewal dates, in one case with literal minutes to spare.It was a pain and required some late nights but it was worth it to deny them another penny.I’m not alone in feeling upset about this. Twitter was ablaze for weeks with people who were angry and bailing for greener, more respectful pastures. I’ve taken a sick joy in watching a lot of people migrate off Drip with much larger lists than mine.I also cancelled Leadpages in favor of Instapage. I was already unhappy with Leadpages, mainly because it feels pretty clunky and dated, they aren’t very responsive to user feedback, and they’re still missing some pretty basic things (like being able to pass form data to the thank you page. Seriously?).Side note: I was going to link to the Leadpages idea portal, but they apparently shut it down. Makes sense, since it was filled with hundreds of good ideas with many, many customer votes that had been ignored for years.Regardless, even if Leadpages was awesome, they own Drip and I won’t give another penny to such an unethical company that treats its customers so poorly.And this migration was a huge pain (which is what they were counting on), partly because of how complex my Drip setups were, but also because ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign are both pretty different from each other and from Drip. On the surface, they all do some of the same things, but once you dig in, things diverge, which made the migration especially painful.Drip is complicated. Stupidly so. In fact, it’s so complicated that there are a number of problems using it:It doesn’t really work. I mean, it does like 99% of the time, but that last 1% means that some of your subscribers are going to have a bad time. And it’s not just that their emails won’t show up. They might just get stuck in a workflow, or skip some emails in a sequence, or get things at the wrong times, or lose data, etc. And since this happens randomly, the number of subscribers who experience it accumulates over time.The customer support reps don’t really know how it works, because it’s too complicated. So you end up spending hours writing up descriptions of the problem and putting together screencasts to show how things don’t seem to be working, and the only response you get is that they’ll have to ask the developers.It encourages you to setup really fancy complex automations which, even if they did work, are way beyond what you actually need. Just imagine: you can do anything! You can track everything! You can have an unlimited number of tags and fields! Track and automate all the things!Your setup can end up being really brittle and deeply tied to the Drip architecture, which is a problem if you want to migrate off. And it’s hard to expand and modify over time without breaking all kinds of things for your subscribers who are in those automations.The setup is hard to document. It’s easy to end up with a large collection of documents and spreadsheets and screencasts to try and explain not only what you did, but why you did it.It’s hard to audit and debug when things go wrong. And things will go wrong. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s happening with your subscribers, where things went off the rails, and how to get it back on track without screwing things up further.In the end, Drip for me felt like a really shitty programming language. Technically possible to do almost anything, but so painful that in the end you wish you hadn’t bothered.By contrast, ConvertKit is simple. And yes, I think it’s too simple in places. I think there are some genuine gaps in the functionality that makes it a little too hard to get done the things you want.But I’m also aware of the fact that I’m coming from Drip and a really convoluted setup, so being forced to simplify is probably a good thing.And ActiveCampaign is not simple, but it’s powerful in a bunch of ways that Drip should have been. Additionally, it has the distinction of actually being, you know, functional. Crazy, I know.Also, ActiveCampaign apparently is more open to feedback than Drip. I posted a Twitter thread listing some things that I like about it and Jason VandeBoom, the founder of ActiveCampaign, setup a call with me to go over some of my feedback. And ActiveCampaign isn’t a tiny company; they have hundreds of employees and are much larger than Drip. It meant a lot to me that Jason would just jump on the phone with a random customer to see how they could improve.Meanwhile Drip’s emails aren’t even signed by an actual person. During this whole debacle, I don’t think anyone from Drip actually responded to anyone’s tweets or complaints. A couple days after the initial announcement when things were blowing up on Twitter, they sent this out another email that was basically "sorry, not sorry"Just like their price increase, all of their corporate communication just screams “We don’t care about you. Go away.”So I did.I’m actually really glad that I dropped Drip, after all that. Partly because of how much better ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign are as tools, but mostly because it taught me a lesson about how you need to be careful when you’re a small company about who you integrate with, because while your interests may align now, that could change at any point.But this rant has gone on long enough, so I’ll save that point for a future post.Disclaimer: just in case Drip decides to sue me (which would be so on-brand for them at this point), ALL the descriptions of Drip’s functionality, failings, and communications is to the best of my recollection and should not be taken as a literal word-for-word account.----Happy to answer any questions about my experience with Drip, ConvertKit, or ActiveCampaign. Would also love to hear anyone else's experiences with any of those (or others you'd recommend in the space of email-based marketing automation).Original post: https://ryanwaggoner.com/drip-pricing-review/

[teiraymondmccoy78]

The Prophets of Cryptocurrency Survey the Boom and Bust

The Prophets of Cryptocurrency Survey the Boom and Bust

Not long ago, I was in Montreal for a cryptocurrency conference. My hotel, on the top floor of a big building downtown, had a roof garden with a koi pond. One morning, as I had coffee and a bagel in this garden, I watched a pair of ducks feeding on a mound of pellets that someone had left for them at the pond’s edge. Every few seconds, they dipped their beaks to drink, and, in the process, spilled undigested pellets into the water. A few koi idled there, poking at the surface for the scraps. The longer I watched, the more I wondered if the ducks were deliberately feeding the fish. Was such a thing possible? I asked the breakfast attendant, a ruddy Quebecer. He smiled and said, “No, but it is what I tell the children.”

My mind had been marinating overnight—and for more than a year, really—in the abstrusities of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology on which they are built. Bitcoin and, subsequently, a proliferation of other cryptocurrencies had become an object of global fascination, amid prophecies of societal upheaval and reform, but mainly on the promise of instant wealth. A peer-to-peer money system that cut out banks and governments had made it possible, and fashionable, to get rich by sticking it to the Man.

Some of this stuff I understood; much of it I still did not. If you’re not, say, a computer scientist or a mathematician, the deeper you get into the esoterica of distributed ledgers, consensus algorithms, hash functions, zero-knowledge proofs, byzantine-fault-tolerance theory, and so on—the farther you travel from the familiar terrain of “the legacy world,” where, one blockchain futurist told me, pityingly, I live—the better the chance you have of bumping up against the limits of your intelligence. You grasp, instead, for metaphors.

Blockchain talk makes a whiteboard of the brain. You’re always erasing, starting over, as analogies present themselves. So, Montreal bagel in hand, I considered the ducks and the carp. Let the pellets be a cryptocurrency—koicoin, say. Would the ducks then be currency miners? Every altcoin—the catchall for cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin, the majority of which are eventually classified as shitcoin—has its own community of enthusiasts and kvetchers, so perhaps the koi were this one’s. The koicommunity. The breakfast attendant who had put out the pellets: he’d be our koicoin Satoshi—as in Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous and still unidentified creator of Bitcoin. Yes, the koicoin protocol was strong, and the incentives appeared to be well aligned, but the project didn’t really pass muster in terms of immutability, decentralization, and privacy. Koicoin was shitcoin.

A few hours later, I was at lunch in a conference room in another hotel, with a table of crypto wizards, a few of them among the most respected devs in the space. (Devs are developers, and even legacy worlders must surrender after a while and ditch the scare quotes around “the space,” when referring to the cryptosphere.) Four of these devs were researchers associated with Ethereum, the open-source blockchain platform. Ethereum is not itself a cryptocurrency; to operate on Ethereum, you have to use the cryptocurrency ether, which, like bitcoin, you can buy or sell. (Among cryptocurrencies, ether’s market capitalization is second only to bitcoin’s.) The devs were specimens of an itinerant coder élite, engaged, wherever they turn up and to the exclusion of pretty much everything else, in the ongoing construction of an alternate global financial and computational infrastructure: a new way of handling money or identity, a system they describe as a better, decentralized version of the World Wide Web—a Web 3.0—more in keeping with the Internet’s early utopian promise than with the invidious, monopolistic hellscape it has become. They want to seize back the tubes, and the data—our lives—from Facebook, Google, and the new oligarchs of Silicon Valley.

One of them, Vlad Zamfir, a twenty-eight-year-old Romanian-born mathematician who grew up in Ottawa and dropped out of the University of Guelph, was scribbling equations on an electronic tablet called a reMarkable pad. He narrated as he scrawled. The others at the table leaned in toward him, in a way that recalled Rembrandt’s “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp.” To the two or three people at the table who were clearly incapable of following along, he said, earnestly, “Sorry to alienate you with my math.” Zamfir is the lead developer of one strand of Casper, an ongoing software upgrade designed to make Ethereum scale better and work more securely—an undertaking thought to be vital to its viability and survival. “It’s shitty technology,” Zamfir, whose Twitter bio reads “absurdist, troll,” told a journalist two years ago.

Zamfir was showing the others some rough equations he’d worked out to address one of the thousands of riddles that need to be solved. This particular effort was an attempt (jargon alert) to optimize the incentive structure for proof-of-stake validation—that is, how best to get enough people and machines to participate in a computing operation essential to the functioning of the entire system. “We’re trying to do game theory here,” Zamfir said. The others pointed out what they thought might be flaws. “It doesn’t seem reasonable,” Zamfir said. “But the math works out.” This summarized much of what I’d encountered in crypto.

To his right sat Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s founder and semi-reluctant philosopher king. Buterin, who is twenty-four, occasionally glanced at Zamfir’s formulas but mostly looked into the middle distance with a melancholic empty stare, sometimes typing out messages and tweets on his phone with one finger. He was a quick study, and also he pretty much already knew what Zamfir had come up with, and to his thinking the work wasn’t quite there. “When the models are getting overcomplicated, it’s probably good to have more time to try to simplify them,” he told me later, with what I took to be generous understatement.

Buterin had been working, simultaneously, on another version of Casper. So he and Zamfir were both collaborating and competing with each other. There seemed to be no ego or bitterness—in their appraisal of each other’s work, in person, or on social media, where so much of the conversation takes place, in full view. Their assessments were Spockian, and cutting only to the Kirks among us.

They had first met before a conference in Toronto in 2014. Zamfir was amazed by Buterin, whom he called a “walking computer,” and he joined Ethereum as a researcher soon after. Now good friends who meet up mostly at conferences and workshops, they had greeted each other the day before in the hotel lobby with a fervent embrace, like summer campers back for another year, before quick-walking to a quiet corner to start in on the incentive-structure-for-proof-of-stake-validation talk. Whenever and wherever Buterin and Zamfir convene, people gather around—eavesdropping, hoping for scraps of insight. The two are used to this and pay little heed. There were no secrets, only problems and solutions, and the satisfaction that comes from proceeding from one toward the other.

The first time I heard the word “Ethereum” was in April, 2017. A hedge-fund manager, at a benefit in Manhattan, was telling me that he’d made more money buying and selling ether and other cryptocurrencies in the past year than he’d ever made at his old hedge fund. This was a significant claim, since the fund had made him a billionaire. He was using words I’d never heard before. He mentioned bitcoin, too, which I’d certainly heard a lot about but, like most people my age, didn’t really understand. I’d idly hoped I might be just old enough to make it to my deathbed without having to get up to speed.

As the year wore on, that dream faded. The surge in the price of bitcoin, and of other cryptocurrencies, which proliferated amid a craze for initial coin offerings (I.C.O.s), prompted a commensurate explosion in the number of stories and conversations about this new kind of money and, sometimes more to the point, about the blockchain technology behind it—this either revolutionary or needlessly laborious way of keeping track of transactions and data. It seemed as if language had been randomized. I started hearing those words—the ones I’d never heard before—an awful lot: “trustless,” “sharding,” “flippening.” Explaining blockchain became a genre unto itself.

The dizzying run-up in crypto prices in 2017 was followed, this year, by a long, lurching retreat that, as the summer gave way to fall, began to seem perilous. As with notorious stock-market and real-estate bubbles, innocents had been taken in and cleaned out. But both boom and bust reflected an ongoing argument over what cryptocurrencies and their technological underpinnings might be worth—which is to say, whether they are, as some like to ask, real. Is crypto the future or a fad? Golden ticket or Ponzi scheme? Amazon 2.0 or tulip mania? And what is it good for, anyway? It sure is neat, but for now it lacks its killer app, a use that might lead to mass adoption, as e-mail did for the Internet. “We need the hundred-dollar laptop, the iPod,” a blockchain apostle told me.

Now and then, legacy titans voiced their scorn. Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of J. P. Morgan, labelled crypto “a fraud”; Warren Buffett used the phrase “rat poison squared.” Legions of skeptics and technophobes, out of envy, ignorance, or wisdom, savored such pronouncements, while the true believers and the vertiginously invested mostly brushed it aside. They had faith that a new order was nigh. They pumped but did not dump.

Among a certain subset, it was both fashionable and integral to ignore the fluctuations in price. The idea was to build and shore up a new system—for everything from payments and banking to health care and identity—that was either a replacement for the old one, or at least an alternative to it, one that was borderless, independent of state control and of exploitation by Big Tech. “It’s definitely nice to try to eke out some completely parallel kind of world that’s totally separate from the existing one,” Buterin said. “It does interact with the rest of society, and the goal is definitely to help improve the mainstream world, but we’re on a different track.” Such an undertaking would, at best, take many years and likely span several economic and investment cycles. While the old armature rots, a new one rises alongside it, much as the new Tappan Zee Bridge, over the Hudson, gradually took shape next to the rusty old one it would one day replace. To Buterin, however, the benefits were already clear. “The cryptocurrency space has succeeded at making certain aspects of the international economy more open, when politics is moving in the exact opposite direction,” he said. “I do think that’s a meaningful contribution to the world.”

Buterin is a striking figure, tall and very lean, with long, fidgety fingers, sharp elfin features, and vivid blue eyes, which, on the rare occasions when he allows them to meet yours, convey a depth and warmth that you don’t expect, in light of the flat, robotic cadence and tone of his speech. People often joke about him being an alien, but they usually apologize for doing so, because there’s a gentleness about him, an air of tolerance and moderation, that works as a built-in rebuke to such unkind remarks. As we spoke, on the first afternoon of the Montreal conference (the crypto life is a never-ending enchainment of conferences, and is pretty much wall-to-wall dudes), he aligned some items in front of him: pens, Post-its, phone. He forgoes most social niceties and overt expressions of emotion but, when he finds questions or assertions agreeable, is generous with notes of encouragement: “Yep, yep, yep”; “Right, totally”; “Yes, yes, exactly.” Arguable remarks elicit a mechanical “Hmm.” He seems to anticipate your question before you even know quite what it is, but he forces himself to allow you to finish. He has a dry sense of humor.

He said, “I definitely don’t have the kind of single-minded C.E.O. personality that a lot of Silicon Valley V.C.s lionize—that thing of being ambitious and wanting to win at all costs, like, basically, Mark Zuckerberg.” He was dressed that day, as on the day before and the day after, in a gray turtleneck, black track pants, and laceless Adidas sneakers over turquoise socks. He often wears T-shirts with unicorns and rainbows. He likes to cite Lambos—as in Lamborghini, the cryptobro trophy ride of choice—as shorthand for the excessive trappings of wealth, which do not interest him. He’s about as indifferently rich as a man can be. Although he sold a quarter of his bitcoin and ether well before the prices began to soar last year, he is said to be worth somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred million dollars. (He recently gave away a couple of million dollars to a life-extension research project.) He has no assistants or entourage. He owns little and travels light. “Recently, I reduced my bag size from sixty litres to forty,” he said. “Forty is very tolerable. You can go on fifteen-kilometre walks with it.” The Adidas, he said, were his only pair of shoes. “Actually, I have another pair that’s in one of the many places I call home.” These are friends’ apartments, where he sometimes sleeps for a few nights at a stretch—in Toronto, San Francisco, Singapore, Shanghai, Taipei. He especially likes East Asia. He speaks fluent Mandarin.

After Montreal, he was headed to Berlin and then Switzerland. His home, really, is the Internet. At one point, I referred to an Ethereum outpost in San Francisco, which I’d read about, as a “base of operations,” and he rejected the term: “Home. Base of operations. The more you invent your own life style, the more you realize that the categories that have been invented are ultimately, at best, imperfect devices for understanding the world, and, at worst, fake.”

I’d been trying for months to talk to Buterin. In January, I reached out to his father, Dmitry, who reported back that Vitalik was not interested in an interview. “He is trying to focus his time on research,” Dmitry said. “He’s not too excited that the community assigns so much importance to him. He wants the community to be more resilient.” Dmitry Buterin, forty-six, is from Grozny, in Chechnya. He studied computer science in Moscow and then started a financial-software business, before emigrating to Canada, when Vitalik was six. Dmitry settled in Toronto, with Vitalik; Vitalik’s mother, a financial analyst, chose Edmonton. Vitalik, when he was three, got an old PC and began fiddling around with Excel. By ten or eleven, he was developing video games. “Vitalik was a very smart boy,” his father said. “It was not easy. His mind was always racing. It was hard for him to communicate. He hardly spoke until he was nine or ten. I was concerned, but at some point I realized it is what it is. I just gave him my love.”

He also gave Vitalik his first glimpse of Bitcoin. It was 2011, somewhat early, but Dmitry was an avowed anarcho-capitalist, a cynical child of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. For many others like him, especially in those early days, the first encounter with Bitcoin was like a religious epiphany—powerful, life-altering, a glimpse of an entirely different and perhaps more agreeable way of ordering human affairs. “Bitcoin looks like money’s dream of itself,” the technology journalist Brian Patrick Eha wrote, in “How Money Got Free.”

“Before Bitcoin came along, I was happily playing World of Warcraft,” Vitalik told me. He had already been nursing some inchoate ideas about the risks and intrinsic unfairness of centralized systems and authority. He once told a journalist, “I saw everything to do with either government regulation or corporate control as just being plain evil. And I assumed that people in those institutions were kind of like Mr. Burns, sitting behind their desks saying, ‘Excellent. How can I screw a thousand people over this time?’ ” Bitcoin scratched this itch. But in many ways what drew him in was the elegance of the system, invented, it seemed, by a rogue outsider out of thin air. It suited a world view, a dream of a fluid, borderless, decentralized financial system beyond the reach of governments and banks, inclined as they inevitably are toward corruption and self-dealing, or at least toward distortions of incentive. Buterin said, “If you look at the people that were involved in the early stages of the Bitcoin space, their earlier pedigrees, if they had any pedigrees at all, were in open source—Linux, Mozilla, and cypherpunk mailing lists.” These were subversives and libertarians, ranging in political affinity from far left to weird right, as often as not without institutional or academic stature or access. “I found it immensely empowering that just a few thousand people like myself could re-create this fundamental social institution from nothing.”

In the eighties, cryptographers and computer scientists began trying to devise a foolproof form of digital money, and a way to execute transactions and contracts without the involvement (or rent-seeking) of third parties. It was the man, woman, or group of humans known as Satoshi Nakamoto who, with Bitcoin in 2008, solved the crux—the so-called double-spend problem. If you have ten dollars, you shouldn’t be able to pay ten dollars for one thing, then spend the same ten for another. This requires some mechanism for keeping track of what you have, whom you gave it to, and how much they now have. And that was the blockchain.

Definitions of blockchain are as various as the metaphors—bingo, Google Docs, a giant room of transparent safes—that people use to try to illustrate them. Broadly speaking, a blockchain is an evolving record of all transactions that is maintained, simultaneously and in common, by every computer in the network of that blockchain, be it Ethereum, Bitcoin, or Monero. Think, as some have suggested, of a dusty leather-bound ledger in a Dickensian counting house, a record of every transaction relevant to that practice. Except that every accountant in London, and in Calcutta, has the same ledger, and when one adds a line to his own the addition appears in all of them. Once a transaction is affirmed, it will—theoretically, anyway—be in the ledger forever, unalterable and unerasable.

Historically, records have been stored in one place—a temple, a courthouse, a server—and kept by whoever presided. If you distrust central authority, or are queasy about Google, this won’t do at all. With blockchains, the records, under a kind of cryptographic seal, are distributed to all and belong to no one. You can’t revise them, because everyone is watching, and because the software will reject it if you try. There is no Undo button. Each block is essentially a bundle of transactions, with a tracking notation, represented in a bit of cryptographic code known as a “hash,” of all the transactions in the past. Each new block in the chain contains all the information (or, really, via the hash, a secure reference to all the information) contained in the previous one, all the way back to the first one, the so-called genesis block.

There are other words that are sometimes included in the definition of blockchain, but they are slippery, and grounds for endless parsing, asterisking, and debate. One is “decentralized.” (Some blockchains are more decentralized than others.) Another is “immutable”—the idea that, in theory, the past record can’t be altered. (This is different from having your crypto stolen or hacked, when it’s stored in an online “wallet.” That happens all the time!) Then there’s “privacy.” The aspiration is for a digital coin to have the untraceability of cash. Because bitcoin was, at the outset, the dark Web’s go-to tender for the purchase of drugs, sex, weaponry, and such, many assumed that it was private. But it isn’t. Every transaction is there in the ledger for all to see. It is, fundamentally, anonymous (or pseudonymous, anyway), but there are many ways for that anonymity to be compromised.

The odds are high that someone, somewhere, has attempted to make an explanation like this one to you. The chain-splainer is a notorious date spoiler and cocktail-party pariah. Here he comes—you’re trapped. You should have known better than to ask about mining.

Mining is a reward system—compensation for helping to maintain and build a blockchain. The work of establishing and recording what’s legit takes machinery, memory, power, and time. Cryptocurrency blockchains require that a bunch of computers run software to affirm (or reject) transactions—it’s a kind of automated convocation. During this ritual, the computers in the network are competing, via brute guesswork, to be the first to get the answer to a really difficult math problem. The more computational power you have, the more guesses you can make, and the more likely you are to get the answer. The winner creates a new block and gets a reward, in, say, bitcoin—new bitcoin, which has not previously been in circulation. (Satoshi ordained that there be a finite number of bitcoin ever created—twenty-one million—so that no one could inflate away the value of existing bitcoin, as, say, the Federal Reserve does with dollars. Other cryptocurrencies, including ether, don’t necessarily have finite supplies.)

This system is known as Proof of Work. The problem-solving exercise is proof that the computers are doing the work. This approach has serious and, some would say, fatal, flaws. First, it requires a tremendous amount of electricity. This year, it is said, the Bitcoin network will use as much energy as the nation of Austria, and produce as much carbon dioxide as a million transatlantic flights. Mining rigs—computers designed specifically to do this work—are thirsty machines. Mining farms tend to sprout up where juice is cheap (typically, in proximity to hydropower projects with excess capacity to unload) and where temperatures are low (so you don’t have to burn even more electricity to keep the rigs cool). There are open-air warehouses in remote corners of sub-Arctic Canada, Russia, and China, with machines whirring away on the tundra, creating magic money, while the permafrost melts. Second, a small number of mining conglomerates, or pools—many of them Chinese—have wielded outsized influence over the network and the decisions that get made. Last month, one of the biggest of these, Bitmain, confirmed plans to go public.

The alternative, which Zamfir and Buterin were working on in Montreal, is called Proof of Stake. In this scenario, the holders of the currency in question become the validators, who typically take a small cut of every approved transaction. Theoretically, the more crypto you have, the more influence you have, so PoW partisans consider PoS to be plutocratic as well—a new gloss on the old problem of too much in the hands of too few.

In 2013, Buterin travelled to San Jose for a Bitcoin meet-up, and felt that he’d encountered like-minded people for the first time in his life—a movement worth devoting himself to. “The people that I had been searching for the whole time were actually all there,” Buterin told me. Zooko Wilcox, a cryptographer, recalled Buterin telling him, “This is the first technology I’ve ever loved that loves me back.” Buterin had been writing blog posts about it for five bitcoins per post. Together, he and Mihai Alisie, a Romanian blockchain entrepreneur who’d read his posts, founded Bitcoin Magazine. Buterin had a knack for explaining things—at least to an audience already primed to understand. But, as he travelled around the world to Bitcoin meet-ups, he began to think that the technology was limited, that attempts to jury-rig non-money uses for this digital-money platform was the computational equivalent of a Swiss Army knife. You basically had to devise hacks. He envisaged a one-blade-fits-all version, a blockchain platform that was broader and more adaptable to a wider array of uses and applications. The concept behind Bitcoin—a network of machines all over the world—seemed to be a building block upon which to construct a global computer capable of all kinds of activities.

In..

http://bit.ly/2QBhnFA

[adrianjenkins952wblr]

The Prophets of Cryptocurrency Survey the Boom and Bust

The Prophets of Cryptocurrency Survey the Boom and Bust

Not long ago, I was in Montreal for a cryptocurrency conference. My hotel, on the top floor of a big building downtown, had a roof garden with a koi pond. One morning, as I had coffee and a bagel in this garden, I watched a pair of ducks feeding on a mound of pellets that someone had left for them at the pond’s edge. Every few seconds, they dipped their beaks to drink, and, in the process, spilled undigested pellets into the water. A few koi idled there, poking at the surface for the scraps. The longer I watched, the more I wondered if the ducks were deliberately feeding the fish. Was such a thing possible? I asked the breakfast attendant, a ruddy Quebecer. He smiled and said, “No, but it is what I tell the children.”

My mind had been marinating overnight—and for more than a year, really—in the abstrusities of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology on which they are built. Bitcoin and, subsequently, a proliferation of other cryptocurrencies had become an object of global fascination, amid prophecies of societal upheaval and reform, but mainly on the promise of instant wealth. A peer-to-peer money system that cut out banks and governments had made it possible, and fashionable, to get rich by sticking it to the Man.

Some of this stuff I understood; much of it I still did not. If you’re not, say, a computer scientist or a mathematician, the deeper you get into the esoterica of distributed ledgers, consensus algorithms, hash functions, zero-knowledge proofs, byzantine-fault-tolerance theory, and so on—the farther you travel from the familiar terrain of “the legacy world,” where, one blockchain futurist told me, pityingly, I live—the better the chance you have of bumping up against the limits of your intelligence. You grasp, instead, for metaphors.

Blockchain talk makes a whiteboard of the brain. You’re always erasing, starting over, as analogies present themselves. So, Montreal bagel in hand, I considered the ducks and the carp. Let the pellets be a cryptocurrency—koicoin, say. Would the ducks then be currency miners? Every altcoin—the catchall for cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin, the majority of which are eventually classified as shitcoin—has its own community of enthusiasts and kvetchers, so perhaps the koi were this one’s. The koicommunity. The breakfast attendant who had put out the pellets: he’d be our koicoin Satoshi—as in Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous and still unidentified creator of Bitcoin. Yes, the koicoin protocol was strong, and the incentives appeared to be well aligned, but the project didn’t really pass muster in terms of immutability, decentralization, and privacy. Koicoin was shitcoin.

A few hours later, I was at lunch in a conference room in another hotel, with a table of crypto wizards, a few of them among the most respected devs in the space. (Devs are developers, and even legacy worlders must surrender after a while and ditch the scare quotes around “the space,” when referring to the cryptosphere.) Four of these devs were researchers associated with Ethereum, the open-source blockchain platform. Ethereum is not itself a cryptocurrency; to operate on Ethereum, you have to use the cryptocurrency ether, which, like bitcoin, you can buy or sell. (Among cryptocurrencies, ether’s market capitalization is second only to bitcoin’s.) The devs were specimens of an itinerant coder élite, engaged, wherever they turn up and to the exclusion of pretty much everything else, in the ongoing construction of an alternate global financial and computational infrastructure: a new way of handling money or identity, a system they describe as a better, decentralized version of the World Wide Web—a Web 3.0—more in keeping with the Internet’s early utopian promise than with the invidious, monopolistic hellscape it has become. They want to seize back the tubes, and the data—our lives—from Facebook, Google, and the new oligarchs of Silicon Valley.

One of them, Vlad Zamfir, a twenty-eight-year-old Romanian-born mathematician who grew up in Ottawa and dropped out of the University of Guelph, was scribbling equations on an electronic tablet called a reMarkable pad. He narrated as he scrawled. The others at the table leaned in toward him, in a way that recalled Rembrandt’s “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp.” To the two or three people at the table who were clearly incapable of following along, he said, earnestly, “Sorry to alienate you with my math.” Zamfir is the lead developer of one strand of Casper, an ongoing software upgrade designed to make Ethereum scale better and work more securely—an undertaking thought to be vital to its viability and survival. “It’s shitty technology,” Zamfir, whose Twitter bio reads “absurdist, troll,” told a journalist two years ago.

Zamfir was showing the others some rough equations he’d worked out to address one of the thousands of riddles that need to be solved. This particular effort was an attempt (jargon alert) to optimize the incentive structure for proof-of-stake validation—that is, how best to get enough people and machines to participate in a computing operation essential to the functioning of the entire system. “We’re trying to do game theory here,” Zamfir said. The others pointed out what they thought might be flaws. “It doesn’t seem reasonable,” Zamfir said. “But the math works out.” This summarized much of what I’d encountered in crypto.

To his right sat Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s founder and semi-reluctant philosopher king. Buterin, who is twenty-four, occasionally glanced at Zamfir’s formulas but mostly looked into the middle distance with a melancholic empty stare, sometimes typing out messages and tweets on his phone with one finger. He was a quick study, and also he pretty much already knew what Zamfir had come up with, and to his thinking the work wasn’t quite there. “When the models are getting overcomplicated, it’s probably good to have more time to try to simplify them,” he told me later, with what I took to be generous understatement.

Buterin had been working, simultaneously, on another version of Casper. So he and Zamfir were both collaborating and competing with each other. There seemed to be no ego or bitterness—in their appraisal of each other’s work, in person, or on social media, where so much of the conversation takes place, in full view. Their assessments were Spockian, and cutting only to the Kirks among us.

They had first met before a conference in Toronto in 2014. Zamfir was amazed by Buterin, whom he called a “walking computer,” and he joined Ethereum as a researcher soon after. Now good friends who meet up mostly at conferences and workshops, they had greeted each other the day before in the hotel lobby with a fervent embrace, like summer campers back for another year, before quick-walking to a quiet corner to start in on the incentive-structure-for-proof-of-stake-validation talk. Whenever and wherever Buterin and Zamfir convene, people gather around—eavesdropping, hoping for scraps of insight. The two are used to this and pay little heed. There were no secrets, only problems and solutions, and the satisfaction that comes from proceeding from one toward the other.

The first time I heard the word “Ethereum” was in April, 2017. A hedge-fund manager, at a benefit in Manhattan, was telling me that he’d made more money buying and selling ether and other cryptocurrencies in the past year than he’d ever made at his old hedge fund. This was a significant claim, since the fund had made him a billionaire. He was using words I’d never heard before. He mentioned bitcoin, too, which I’d certainly heard a lot about but, like most people my age, didn’t really understand. I’d idly hoped I might be just old enough to make it to my deathbed without having to get up to speed.

As the year wore on, that dream faded. The surge in the price of bitcoin, and of other cryptocurrencies, which proliferated amid a craze for initial coin offerings (I.C.O.s), prompted a commensurate explosion in the number of stories and conversations about this new kind of money and, sometimes more to the point, about the blockchain technology behind it—this either revolutionary or needlessly laborious way of keeping track of transactions and data. It seemed as if language had been randomized. I started hearing those words—the ones I’d never heard before—an awful lot: “trustless,” “sharding,” “flippening.” Explaining blockchain became a genre unto itself.

The dizzying run-up in crypto prices in 2017 was followed, this year, by a long, lurching retreat that, as the summer gave way to fall, began to seem perilous. As with notorious stock-market and real-estate bubbles, innocents had been taken in and cleaned out. But both boom and bust reflected an ongoing argument over what cryptocurrencies and their technological underpinnings might be worth—which is to say, whether they are, as some like to ask, real. Is crypto the future or a fad? Golden ticket or Ponzi scheme? Amazon 2.0 or tulip mania? And what is it good for, anyway? It sure is neat, but for now it lacks its killer app, a use that might lead to mass adoption, as e-mail did for the Internet. “We need the hundred-dollar laptop, the iPod,” a blockchain apostle told me.

Now and then, legacy titans voiced their scorn. Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of J. P. Morgan, labelled crypto “a fraud”; Warren Buffett used the phrase “rat poison squared.” Legions of skeptics and technophobes, out of envy, ignorance, or wisdom, savored such pronouncements, while the true believers and the vertiginously invested mostly brushed it aside. They had faith that a new order was nigh. They pumped but did not dump.

Among a certain subset, it was both fashionable and integral to ignore the fluctuations in price. The idea was to build and shore up a new system—for everything from payments and banking to health care and identity—that was either a replacement for the old one, or at least an alternative to it, one that was borderless, independent of state control and of exploitation by Big Tech. “It’s definitely nice to try to eke out some completely parallel kind of world that’s totally separate from the existing one,” Buterin said. “It does interact with the rest of society, and the goal is definitely to help improve the mainstream world, but we’re on a different track.” Such an undertaking would, at best, take many years and likely span several economic and investment cycles. While the old armature rots, a new one rises alongside it, much as the new Tappan Zee Bridge, over the Hudson, gradually took shape next to the rusty old one it would one day replace. To Buterin, however, the benefits were already clear. “The cryptocurrency space has succeeded at making certain aspects of the international economy more open, when politics is moving in the exact opposite direction,” he said. “I do think that’s a meaningful contribution to the world.”

Buterin is a striking figure, tall and very lean, with long, fidgety fingers, sharp elfin features, and vivid blue eyes, which, on the rare occasions when he allows them to meet yours, convey a depth and warmth that you don’t expect, in light of the flat, robotic cadence and tone of his speech. People often joke about him being an alien, but they usually apologize for doing so, because there’s a gentleness about him, an air of tolerance and moderation, that works as a built-in rebuke to such unkind remarks. As we spoke, on the first afternoon of the Montreal conference (the crypto life is a never-ending enchainment of conferences, and is pretty much wall-to-wall dudes), he aligned some items in front of him: pens, Post-its, phone. He forgoes most social niceties and overt expressions of emotion but, when he finds questions or assertions agreeable, is generous with notes of encouragement: “Yep, yep, yep”; “Right, totally”; “Yes, yes, exactly.” Arguable remarks elicit a mechanical “Hmm.” He seems to anticipate your question before you even know quite what it is, but he forces himself to allow you to finish. He has a dry sense of humor.

He said, “I definitely don’t have the kind of single-minded C.E.O. personality that a lot of Silicon Valley V.C.s lionize—that thing of being ambitious and wanting to win at all costs, like, basically, Mark Zuckerberg.” He was dressed that day, as on the day before and the day after, in a gray turtleneck, black track pants, and laceless Adidas sneakers over turquoise socks. He often wears T-shirts with unicorns and rainbows. He likes to cite Lambos—as in Lamborghini, the cryptobro trophy ride of choice—as shorthand for the excessive trappings of wealth, which do not interest him. He’s about as indifferently rich as a man can be. Although he sold a quarter of his bitcoin and ether well before the prices began to soar last year, he is said to be worth somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred million dollars. (He recently gave away a couple of million dollars to a life-extension research project.) He has no assistants or entourage. He owns little and travels light. “Recently, I reduced my bag size from sixty litres to forty,” he said. “Forty is very tolerable. You can go on fifteen-kilometre walks with it.” The Adidas, he said, were his only pair of shoes. “Actually, I have another pair that’s in one of the many places I call home.” These are friends’ apartments, where he sometimes sleeps for a few nights at a stretch—in Toronto, San Francisco, Singapore, Shanghai, Taipei. He especially likes East Asia. He speaks fluent Mandarin.

After Montreal, he was headed to Berlin and then Switzerland. His home, really, is the Internet. At one point, I referred to an Ethereum outpost in San Francisco, which I’d read about, as a “base of operations,” and he rejected the term: “Home. Base of operations. The more you invent your own life style, the more you realize that the categories that have been invented are ultimately, at best, imperfect devices for understanding the world, and, at worst, fake.”

I’d been trying for months to talk to Buterin. In January, I reached out to his father, Dmitry, who reported back that Vitalik was not interested in an interview. “He is trying to focus his time on research,” Dmitry said. “He’s not too excited that the community assigns so much importance to him. He wants the community to be more resilient.” Dmitry Buterin, forty-six, is from Grozny, in Chechnya. He studied computer science in Moscow and then started a financial-software business, before emigrating to Canada, when Vitalik was six. Dmitry settled in Toronto, with Vitalik; Vitalik’s mother, a financial analyst, chose Edmonton. Vitalik, when he was three, got an old PC and began fiddling around with Excel. By ten or eleven, he was developing video games. “Vitalik was a very smart boy,” his father said. “It was not easy. His mind was always racing. It was hard for him to communicate. He hardly spoke until he was nine or ten. I was concerned, but at some point I realized it is what it is. I just gave him my love.”

He also gave Vitalik his first glimpse of Bitcoin. It was 2011, somewhat early, but Dmitry was an avowed anarcho-capitalist, a cynical child of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. For many others like him, especially in those early days, the first encounter with Bitcoin was like a religious epiphany—powerful, life-altering, a glimpse of an entirely different and perhaps more agreeable way of ordering human affairs. “Bitcoin looks like money’s dream of itself,” the technology journalist Brian Patrick Eha wrote, in “How Money Got Free.”

“Before Bitcoin came along, I was happily playing World of Warcraft,” Vitalik told me. He had already been nursing some inchoate ideas about the risks and intrinsic unfairness of centralized systems and authority. He once told a journalist, “I saw everything to do with either government regulation or corporate control as just being plain evil. And I assumed that people in those institutions were kind of like Mr. Burns, sitting behind their desks saying, ‘Excellent. How can I screw a thousand people over this time?’ ” Bitcoin scratched this itch. But in many ways what drew him in was the elegance of the system, invented, it seemed, by a rogue outsider out of thin air. It suited a world view, a dream of a fluid, borderless, decentralized financial system beyond the reach of governments and banks, inclined as they inevitably are toward corruption and self-dealing, or at least toward distortions of incentive. Buterin said, “If you look at the people that were involved in the early stages of the Bitcoin space, their earlier pedigrees, if they had any pedigrees at all, were in open source—Linux, Mozilla, and cypherpunk mailing lists.” These were subversives and libertarians, ranging in political affinity from far left to weird right, as often as not without institutional or academic stature or access. “I found it immensely empowering that just a few thousand people like myself could re-create this fundamental social institution from nothing.”

In the eighties, cryptographers and computer scientists began trying to devise a foolproof form of digital money, and a way to execute transactions and contracts without the involvement (or rent-seeking) of third parties. It was the man, woman, or group of humans known as Satoshi Nakamoto who, with Bitcoin in 2008, solved the crux—the so-called double-spend problem. If you have ten dollars, you shouldn’t be able to pay ten dollars for one thing, then spend the same ten for another. This requires some mechanism for keeping track of what you have, whom you gave it to, and how much they now have. And that was the blockchain.

Definitions of blockchain are as various as the metaphors—bingo, Google Docs, a giant room of transparent safes—that people use to try to illustrate them. Broadly speaking, a blockchain is an evolving record of all transactions that is maintained, simultaneously and in common, by every computer in the network of that blockchain, be it Ethereum, Bitcoin, or Monero. Think, as some have suggested, of a dusty leather-bound ledger in a Dickensian counting house, a record of every transaction relevant to that practice. Except that every accountant in London, and in Calcutta, has the same ledger, and when one adds a line to his own the addition appears in all of them. Once a transaction is affirmed, it will—theoretically, anyway—be in the ledger forever, unalterable and unerasable.

Historically, records have been stored in one place—a temple, a courthouse, a server—and kept by whoever presided. If you distrust central authority, or are queasy about Google, this won’t do at all. With blockchains, the records, under a kind of cryptographic seal, are distributed to all and belong to no one. You can’t revise them, because everyone is watching, and because the software will reject it if you try. There is no Undo button. Each block is essentially a bundle of transactions, with a tracking notation, represented in a bit of cryptographic code known as a “hash,” of all the transactions in the past. Each new block in the chain contains all the information (or, really, via the hash, a secure reference to all the information) contained in the previous one, all the way back to the first one, the so-called genesis block.

There are other words that are sometimes included in the definition of blockchain, but they are slippery, and grounds for endless parsing, asterisking, and debate. One is “decentralized.” (Some blockchains are more decentralized than others.) Another is “immutable”—the idea that, in theory, the past record can’t be altered. (This is different from having your crypto stolen or hacked, when it’s stored in an online “wallet.” That happens all the time!) Then there’s “privacy.” The aspiration is for a digital coin to have the untraceability of cash. Because bitcoin was, at the outset, the dark Web’s go-to tender for the purchase of drugs, sex, weaponry, and such, many assumed that it was private. But it isn’t. Every transaction is there in the ledger for all to see. It is, fundamentally, anonymous (or pseudonymous, anyway), but there are many ways for that anonymity to be compromised.

The odds are high that someone, somewhere, has attempted to make an explanation like this one to you. The chain-splainer is a notorious date spoiler and cocktail-party pariah. Here he comes—you’re trapped. You should have known better than to ask about mining.

Mining is a reward system—compensation for helping to maintain and build a blockchain. The work of establishing and recording what’s legit takes machinery, memory, power, and time. Cryptocurrency blockchains require that a bunch of computers run software to affirm (or reject) transactions—it’s a kind of automated convocation. During this ritual, the computers in the network are competing, via brute guesswork, to be the first to get the answer to a really difficult math problem. The more computational power you have, the more guesses you can make, and the more likely you are to get the answer. The winner creates a new block and gets a reward, in, say, bitcoin—new bitcoin, which has not previously been in circulation. (Satoshi ordained that there be a finite number of bitcoin ever created—twenty-one million—so that no one could inflate away the value of existing bitcoin, as, say, the Federal Reserve does with dollars. Other cryptocurrencies, including ether, don’t necessarily have finite supplies.)

This system is known as Proof of Work. The problem-solving exercise is proof that the computers are doing the work. This approach has serious and, some would say, fatal, flaws. First, it requires a tremendous amount of electricity. This year, it is said, the Bitcoin network will use as much energy as the nation of Austria, and produce as much carbon dioxide as a million transatlantic flights. Mining rigs—computers designed specifically to do this work—are thirsty machines. Mining farms tend to sprout up where juice is cheap (typically, in proximity to hydropower projects with excess capacity to unload) and where temperatures are low (so you don’t have to burn even more electricity to keep the rigs cool). There are open-air warehouses in remote corners of sub-Arctic Canada, Russia, and China, with machines whirring away on the tundra, creating magic money, while the permafrost melts. Second, a small number of mining conglomerates, or pools—many of them Chinese—have wielded outsized influence over the network and the decisions that get made. Last month, one of the biggest of these, Bitmain, confirmed plans to go public.

The alternative, which Zamfir and Buterin were working on in Montreal, is called Proof of Stake. In this scenario, the holders of the currency in question become the validators, who typically take a small cut of every approved transaction. Theoretically, the more crypto you have, the more influence you have, so PoW partisans consider PoS to be plutocratic as well—a new gloss on the old problem of too much in the hands of too few.

In 2013, Buterin travelled to San Jose for a Bitcoin meet-up, and felt that he’d encountered like-minded people for the first time in his life—a movement worth devoting himself to. “The people that I had been searching for the whole time were actually all there,” Buterin told me. Zooko Wilcox, a cryptographer, recalled Buterin telling him, “This is the first technology I’ve ever loved that loves me back.” Buterin had been writing blog posts about it for five bitcoins per post. Together, he and Mihai Alisie, a Romanian blockchain entrepreneur who’d read his posts, founded Bitcoin Magazine. Buterin had a knack for explaining things—at least to an audience already primed to understand. But, as he travelled around the world to Bitcoin meet-ups, he began to think that the technology was limited, that attempts to jury-rig non-money uses for this digital-money platform was the computational equivalent of a Swiss Army knife. You basically had to devise hacks. He envisaged a one-blade-fits-all version, a blockchain platform that was broader and more adaptable to a wider array of uses and applications. The concept behind Bitcoin—a network of machines all over the world—seemed to be a building block upon which to construct a global computer capable of all kinds of activities.

In..

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[courtneyvbrooks87]

The Prophets of Cryptocurrency Survey the Boom and Bust

The Prophets of Cryptocurrency Survey the Boom and Bust

Not long ago, I was in Montreal for a cryptocurrency conference. My hotel, on the top floor of a big building downtown, had a roof garden with a koi pond. One morning, as I had coffee and a bagel in this garden, I watched a pair of ducks feeding on a mound of pellets that someone had left for them at the pond’s edge. Every few seconds, they dipped their beaks to drink, and, in the process, spilled undigested pellets into the water. A few koi idled there, poking at the surface for the scraps. The longer I watched, the more I wondered if the ducks were deliberately feeding the fish. Was such a thing possible? I asked the breakfast attendant, a ruddy Quebecer. He smiled and said, “No, but it is what I tell the children.”

My mind had been marinating overnight—and for more than a year, really—in the abstrusities of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology on which they are built. Bitcoin and, subsequently, a proliferation of other cryptocurrencies had become an object of global fascination, amid prophecies of societal upheaval and reform, but mainly on the promise of instant wealth. A peer-to-peer money system that cut out banks and governments had made it possible, and fashionable, to get rich by sticking it to the Man.

Some of this stuff I understood; much of it I still did not. If you’re not, say, a computer scientist or a mathematician, the deeper you get into the esoterica of distributed ledgers, consensus algorithms, hash functions, zero-knowledge proofs, byzantine-fault-tolerance theory, and so on—the farther you travel from the familiar terrain of “the legacy world,” where, one blockchain futurist told me, pityingly, I live—the better the chance you have of bumping up against the limits of your intelligence. You grasp, instead, for metaphors.

Blockchain talk makes a whiteboard of the brain. You’re always erasing, starting over, as analogies present themselves. So, Montreal bagel in hand, I considered the ducks and the carp. Let the pellets be a cryptocurrency—koicoin, say. Would the ducks then be currency miners? Every altcoin—the catchall for cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin, the majority of which are eventually classified as shitcoin—has its own community of enthusiasts and kvetchers, so perhaps the koi were this one’s. The koicommunity. The breakfast attendant who had put out the pellets: he’d be our koicoin Satoshi—as in Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous and still unidentified creator of Bitcoin. Yes, the koicoin protocol was strong, and the incentives appeared to be well aligned, but the project didn’t really pass muster in terms of immutability, decentralization, and privacy. Koicoin was shitcoin.

A few hours later, I was at lunch in a conference room in another hotel, with a table of crypto wizards, a few of them among the most respected devs in the space. (Devs are developers, and even legacy worlders must surrender after a while and ditch the scare quotes around “the space,” when referring to the cryptosphere.) Four of these devs were researchers associated with Ethereum, the open-source blockchain platform. Ethereum is not itself a cryptocurrency; to operate on Ethereum, you have to use the cryptocurrency ether, which, like bitcoin, you can buy or sell. (Among cryptocurrencies, ether’s market capitalization is second only to bitcoin’s.) The devs were specimens of an itinerant coder élite, engaged, wherever they turn up and to the exclusion of pretty much everything else, in the ongoing construction of an alternate global financial and computational infrastructure: a new way of handling money or identity, a system they describe as a better, decentralized version of the World Wide Web—a Web 3.0—more in keeping with the Internet’s early utopian promise than with the invidious, monopolistic hellscape it has become. They want to seize back the tubes, and the data—our lives—from Facebook, Google, and the new oligarchs of Silicon Valley.

One of them, Vlad Zamfir, a twenty-eight-year-old Romanian-born mathematician who grew up in Ottawa and dropped out of the University of Guelph, was scribbling equations on an electronic tablet called a reMarkable pad. He narrated as he scrawled. The others at the table leaned in toward him, in a way that recalled Rembrandt’s “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp.” To the two or three people at the table who were clearly incapable of following along, he said, earnestly, “Sorry to alienate you with my math.” Zamfir is the lead developer of one strand of Casper, an ongoing software upgrade designed to make Ethereum scale better and work more securely—an undertaking thought to be vital to its viability and survival. “It’s shitty technology,” Zamfir, whose Twitter bio reads “absurdist, troll,” told a journalist two years ago.

Zamfir was showing the others some rough equations he’d worked out to address one of the thousands of riddles that need to be solved. This particular effort was an attempt (jargon alert) to optimize the incentive structure for proof-of-stake validation—that is, how best to get enough people and machines to participate in a computing operation essential to the functioning of the entire system. “We’re trying to do game theory here,” Zamfir said. The others pointed out what they thought might be flaws. “It doesn’t seem reasonable,” Zamfir said. “But the math works out.” This summarized much of what I’d encountered in crypto.

To his right sat Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s founder and semi-reluctant philosopher king. Buterin, who is twenty-four, occasionally glanced at Zamfir’s formulas but mostly looked into the middle distance with a melancholic empty stare, sometimes typing out messages and tweets on his phone with one finger. He was a quick study, and also he pretty much already knew what Zamfir had come up with, and to his thinking the work wasn’t quite there. “When the models are getting overcomplicated, it’s probably good to have more time to try to simplify them,” he told me later, with what I took to be generous understatement.

Buterin had been working, simultaneously, on another version of Casper. So he and Zamfir were both collaborating and competing with each other. There seemed to be no ego or bitterness—in their appraisal of each other’s work, in person, or on social media, where so much of the conversation takes place, in full view. Their assessments were Spockian, and cutting only to the Kirks among us.

They had first met before a conference in Toronto in 2014. Zamfir was amazed by Buterin, whom he called a “walking computer,” and he joined Ethereum as a researcher soon after. Now good friends who meet up mostly at conferences and workshops, they had greeted each other the day before in the hotel lobby with a fervent embrace, like summer campers back for another year, before quick-walking to a quiet corner to start in on the incentive-structure-for-proof-of-stake-validation talk. Whenever and wherever Buterin and Zamfir convene, people gather around—eavesdropping, hoping for scraps of insight. The two are used to this and pay little heed. There were no secrets, only problems and solutions, and the satisfaction that comes from proceeding from one toward the other.

The first time I heard the word “Ethereum” was in April, 2017. A hedge-fund manager, at a benefit in Manhattan, was telling me that he’d made more money buying and selling ether and other cryptocurrencies in the past year than he’d ever made at his old hedge fund. This was a significant claim, since the fund had made him a billionaire. He was using words I’d never heard before. He mentioned bitcoin, too, which I’d certainly heard a lot about but, like most people my age, didn’t really understand. I’d idly hoped I might be just old enough to make it to my deathbed without having to get up to speed.

As the year wore on, that dream faded. The surge in the price of bitcoin, and of other cryptocurrencies, which proliferated amid a craze for initial coin offerings (I.C.O.s), prompted a commensurate explosion in the number of stories and conversations about this new kind of money and, sometimes more to the point, about the blockchain technology behind it—this either revolutionary or needlessly laborious way of keeping track of transactions and data. It seemed as if language had been randomized. I started hearing those words—the ones I’d never heard before—an awful lot: “trustless,” “sharding,” “flippening.” Explaining blockchain became a genre unto itself.

The dizzying run-up in crypto prices in 2017 was followed, this year, by a long, lurching retreat that, as the summer gave way to fall, began to seem perilous. As with notorious stock-market and real-estate bubbles, innocents had been taken in and cleaned out. But both boom and bust reflected an ongoing argument over what cryptocurrencies and their technological underpinnings might be worth—which is to say, whether they are, as some like to ask, real. Is crypto the future or a fad? Golden ticket or Ponzi scheme? Amazon 2.0 or tulip mania? And what is it good for, anyway? It sure is neat, but for now it lacks its killer app, a use that might lead to mass adoption, as e-mail did for the Internet. “We need the hundred-dollar laptop, the iPod,” a blockchain apostle told me.

Now and then, legacy titans voiced their scorn. Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of J. P. Morgan, labelled crypto “a fraud”; Warren Buffett used the phrase “rat poison squared.” Legions of skeptics and technophobes, out of envy, ignorance, or wisdom, savored such pronouncements, while the true believers and the vertiginously invested mostly brushed it aside. They had faith that a new order was nigh. They pumped but did not dump.

Among a certain subset, it was both fashionable and integral to ignore the fluctuations in price. The idea was to build and shore up a new system—for everything from payments and banking to health care and identity—that was either a replacement for the old one, or at least an alternative to it, one that was borderless, independent of state control and of exploitation by Big Tech. “It’s definitely nice to try to eke out some completely parallel kind of world that’s totally separate from the existing one,” Buterin said. “It does interact with the rest of society, and the goal is definitely to help improve the mainstream world, but we’re on a different track.” Such an undertaking would, at best, take many years and likely span several economic and investment cycles. While the old armature rots, a new one rises alongside it, much as the new Tappan Zee Bridge, over the Hudson, gradually took shape next to the rusty old one it would one day replace. To Buterin, however, the benefits were already clear. “The cryptocurrency space has succeeded at making certain aspects of the international economy more open, when politics is moving in the exact opposite direction,” he said. “I do think that’s a meaningful contribution to the world.”

Buterin is a striking figure, tall and very lean, with long, fidgety fingers, sharp elfin features, and vivid blue eyes, which, on the rare occasions when he allows them to meet yours, convey a depth and warmth that you don’t expect, in light of the flat, robotic cadence and tone of his speech. People often joke about him being an alien, but they usually apologize for doing so, because there’s a gentleness about him, an air of tolerance and moderation, that works as a built-in rebuke to such unkind remarks. As we spoke, on the first afternoon of the Montreal conference (the crypto life is a never-ending enchainment of conferences, and is pretty much wall-to-wall dudes), he aligned some items in front of him: pens, Post-its, phone. He forgoes most social niceties and overt expressions of emotion but, when he finds questions or assertions agreeable, is generous with notes of encouragement: “Yep, yep, yep”; “Right, totally”; “Yes, yes, exactly.” Arguable remarks elicit a mechanical “Hmm.” He seems to anticipate your question before you even know quite what it is, but he forces himself to allow you to finish. He has a dry sense of humor.

He said, “I definitely don’t have the kind of single-minded C.E.O. personality that a lot of Silicon Valley V.C.s lionize—that thing of being ambitious and wanting to win at all costs, like, basically, Mark Zuckerberg.” He was dressed that day, as on the day before and the day after, in a gray turtleneck, black track pants, and laceless Adidas sneakers over turquoise socks. He often wears T-shirts with unicorns and rainbows. He likes to cite Lambos—as in Lamborghini, the cryptobro trophy ride of choice—as shorthand for the excessive trappings of wealth, which do not interest him. He’s about as indifferently rich as a man can be. Although he sold a quarter of his bitcoin and ether well before the prices began to soar last year, he is said to be worth somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred million dollars. (He recently gave away a couple of million dollars to a life-extension research project.) He has no assistants or entourage. He owns little and travels light. “Recently, I reduced my bag size from sixty litres to forty,” he said. “Forty is very tolerable. You can go on fifteen-kilometre walks with it.” The Adidas, he said, were his only pair of shoes. “Actually, I have another pair that’s in one of the many places I call home.” These are friends’ apartments, where he sometimes sleeps for a few nights at a stretch—in Toronto, San Francisco, Singapore, Shanghai, Taipei. He especially likes East Asia. He speaks fluent Mandarin.

After Montreal, he was headed to Berlin and then Switzerland. His home, really, is the Internet. At one point, I referred to an Ethereum outpost in San Francisco, which I’d read about, as a “base of operations,” and he rejected the term: “Home. Base of operations. The more you invent your own life style, the more you realize that the categories that have been invented are ultimately, at best, imperfect devices for understanding the world, and, at worst, fake.”

I’d been trying for months to talk to Buterin. In January, I reached out to his father, Dmitry, who reported back that Vitalik was not interested in an interview. “He is trying to focus his time on research,” Dmitry said. “He’s not too excited that the community assigns so much importance to him. He wants the community to be more resilient.” Dmitry Buterin, forty-six, is from Grozny, in Chechnya. He studied computer science in Moscow and then started a financial-software business, before emigrating to Canada, when Vitalik was six. Dmitry settled in Toronto, with Vitalik; Vitalik’s mother, a financial analyst, chose Edmonton. Vitalik, when he was three, got an old PC and began fiddling around with Excel. By ten or eleven, he was developing video games. “Vitalik was a very smart boy,” his father said. “It was not easy. His mind was always racing. It was hard for him to communicate. He hardly spoke until he was nine or ten. I was concerned, but at some point I realized it is what it is. I just gave him my love.”

He also gave Vitalik his first glimpse of Bitcoin. It was 2011, somewhat early, but Dmitry was an avowed anarcho-capitalist, a cynical child of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. For many others like him, especially in those early days, the first encounter with Bitcoin was like a religious epiphany—powerful, life-altering, a glimpse of an entirely different and perhaps more agreeable way of ordering human affairs. “Bitcoin looks like money’s dream of itself,” the technology journalist Brian Patrick Eha wrote, in “How Money Got Free.”

“Before Bitcoin came along, I was happily playing World of Warcraft,” Vitalik told me. He had already been nursing some inchoate ideas about the risks and intrinsic unfairness of centralized systems and authority. He once told a journalist, “I saw everything to do with either government regulation or corporate control as just being plain evil. And I assumed that people in those institutions were kind of like Mr. Burns, sitting behind their desks saying, ‘Excellent. How can I screw a thousand people over this time?’ ” Bitcoin scratched this itch. But in many ways what drew him in was the elegance of the system, invented, it seemed, by a rogue outsider out of thin air. It suited a world view, a dream of a fluid, borderless, decentralized financial system beyond the reach of governments and banks, inclined as they inevitably are toward corruption and self-dealing, or at least toward distortions of incentive. Buterin said, “If you look at the people that were involved in the early stages of the Bitcoin space, their earlier pedigrees, if they had any pedigrees at all, were in open source—Linux, Mozilla, and cypherpunk mailing lists.” These were subversives and libertarians, ranging in political affinity from far left to weird right, as often as not without institutional or academic stature or access. “I found it immensely empowering that just a few thousand people like myself could re-create this fundamental social institution from nothing.”

In the eighties, cryptographers and computer scientists began trying to devise a foolproof form of digital money, and a way to execute transactions and contracts without the involvement (or rent-seeking) of third parties. It was the man, woman, or group of humans known as Satoshi Nakamoto who, with Bitcoin in 2008, solved the crux—the so-called double-spend problem. If you have ten dollars, you shouldn’t be able to pay ten dollars for one thing, then spend the same ten for another. This requires some mechanism for keeping track of what you have, whom you gave it to, and how much they now have. And that was the blockchain.

Definitions of blockchain are as various as the metaphors—bingo, Google Docs, a giant room of transparent safes—that people use to try to illustrate them. Broadly speaking, a blockchain is an evolving record of all transactions that is maintained, simultaneously and in common, by every computer in the network of that blockchain, be it Ethereum, Bitcoin, or Monero. Think, as some have suggested, of a dusty leather-bound ledger in a Dickensian counting house, a record of every transaction relevant to that practice. Except that every accountant in London, and in Calcutta, has the same ledger, and when one adds a line to his own the addition appears in all of them. Once a transaction is affirmed, it will—theoretically, anyway—be in the ledger forever, unalterable and unerasable.

Historically, records have been stored in one place—a temple, a courthouse, a server—and kept by whoever presided. If you distrust central authority, or are queasy about Google, this won’t do at all. With blockchains, the records, under a kind of cryptographic seal, are distributed to all and belong to no one. You can’t revise them, because everyone is watching, and because the software will reject it if you try. There is no Undo button. Each block is essentially a bundle of transactions, with a tracking notation, represented in a bit of cryptographic code known as a “hash,” of all the transactions in the past. Each new block in the chain contains all the information (or, really, via the hash, a secure reference to all the information) contained in the previous one, all the way back to the first one, the so-called genesis block.

There are other words that are sometimes included in the definition of blockchain, but they are slippery, and grounds for endless parsing, asterisking, and debate. One is “decentralized.” (Some blockchains are more decentralized than others.) Another is “immutable”—the idea that, in theory, the past record can’t be altered. (This is different from having your crypto stolen or hacked, when it’s stored in an online “wallet.” That happens all the time!) Then there’s “privacy.” The aspiration is for a digital coin to have the untraceability of cash. Because bitcoin was, at the outset, the dark Web’s go-to tender for the purchase of drugs, sex, weaponry, and such, many assumed that it was private. But it isn’t. Every transaction is there in the ledger for all to see. It is, fundamentally, anonymous (or pseudonymous, anyway), but there are many ways for that anonymity to be compromised.

The odds are high that someone, somewhere, has attempted to make an explanation like this one to you. The chain-splainer is a notorious date spoiler and cocktail-party pariah. Here he comes—you’re trapped. You should have known better than to ask about mining.

Mining is a reward system—compensation for helping to maintain and build a blockchain. The work of establishing and recording what’s legit takes machinery, memory, power, and time. Cryptocurrency blockchains require that a bunch of computers run software to affirm (or reject) transactions—it’s a kind of automated convocation. During this ritual, the computers in the network are competing, via brute guesswork, to be the first to get the answer to a really difficult math problem. The more computational power you have, the more guesses you can make, and the more likely you are to get the answer. The winner creates a new block and gets a reward, in, say, bitcoin—new bitcoin, which has not previously been in circulation. (Satoshi ordained that there be a finite number of bitcoin ever created—twenty-one million—so that no one could inflate away the value of existing bitcoin, as, say, the Federal Reserve does with dollars. Other cryptocurrencies, including ether, don’t necessarily have finite supplies.)

This system is known as Proof of Work. The problem-solving exercise is proof that the computers are doing the work. This approach has serious and, some would say, fatal, flaws. First, it requires a tremendous amount of electricity. This year, it is said, the Bitcoin network will use as much energy as the nation of Austria, and produce as much carbon dioxide as a million transatlantic flights. Mining rigs—computers designed specifically to do this work—are thirsty machines. Mining farms tend to sprout up where juice is cheap (typically, in proximity to hydropower projects with excess capacity to unload) and where temperatures are low (so you don’t have to burn even more electricity to keep the rigs cool). There are open-air warehouses in remote corners of sub-Arctic Canada, Russia, and China, with machines whirring away on the tundra, creating magic money, while the permafrost melts. Second, a small number of mining conglomerates, or pools—many of them Chinese—have wielded outsized influence over the network and the decisions that get made. Last month, one of the biggest of these, Bitmain, confirmed plans to go public.

The alternative, which Zamfir and Buterin were working on in Montreal, is called Proof of Stake. In this scenario, the holders of the currency in question become the validators, who typically take a small cut of every approved transaction. Theoretically, the more crypto you have, the more influence you have, so PoW partisans consider PoS to be plutocratic as well—a new gloss on the old problem of too much in the hands of too few.

In 2013, Buterin travelled to San Jose for a Bitcoin meet-up, and felt that he’d encountered like-minded people for the first time in his life—a movement worth devoting himself to. “The people that I had been searching for the whole time were actually all there,” Buterin told me. Zooko Wilcox, a cryptographer, recalled Buterin telling him, “This is the first technology I’ve ever loved that loves me back.” Buterin had been writing blog posts about it for five bitcoins per post. Together, he and Mihai Alisie, a Romanian blockchain entrepreneur who’d read his posts, founded Bitcoin Magazine. Buterin had a knack for explaining things—at least to an audience already primed to understand. But, as he travelled around the world to Bitcoin meet-ups, he began to think that the technology was limited, that attempts to jury-rig non-money uses for this digital-money platform was the computational equivalent of a Swiss Army knife. You basically had to devise hacks. He envisaged a one-blade-fits-all version, a blockchain platform that was broader and more adaptable to a wider array of uses and applications. The concept behind Bitcoin—a network of machines all over the world—seemed to be a building block upon which to construct a global computer capable of all kinds of activities.

In..

http://bit.ly/2QBhnFA

[vanessawestwcrtr5]

The Prophets of Cryptocurrency Survey the Boom and Bust

The Prophets of Cryptocurrency Survey the Boom and Bust

Not long ago, I was in Montreal for a cryptocurrency conference. My hotel, on the top floor of a big building downtown, had a roof garden with a koi pond. One morning, as I had coffee and a bagel in this garden, I watched a pair of ducks feeding on a mound of pellets that someone had left for them at the pond’s edge. Every few seconds, they dipped their beaks to drink, and, in the process, spilled undigested pellets into the water. A few koi idled there, poking at the surface for the scraps. The longer I watched, the more I wondered if the ducks were deliberately feeding the fish. Was such a thing possible? I asked the breakfast attendant, a ruddy Quebecer. He smiled and said, “No, but it is what I tell the children.”

My mind had been marinating overnight—and for more than a year, really—in the abstrusities of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology on which they are built. Bitcoin and, subsequently, a proliferation of other cryptocurrencies had become an object of global fascination, amid prophecies of societal upheaval and reform, but mainly on the promise of instant wealth. A peer-to-peer money system that cut out banks and governments had made it possible, and fashionable, to get rich by sticking it to the Man.

Some of this stuff I understood; much of it I still did not. If you’re not, say, a computer scientist or a mathematician, the deeper you get into the esoterica of distributed ledgers, consensus algorithms, hash functions, zero-knowledge proofs, byzantine-fault-tolerance theory, and so on—the farther you travel from the familiar terrain of “the legacy world,” where, one blockchain futurist told me, pityingly, I live—the better the chance you have of bumping up against the limits of your intelligence. You grasp, instead, for metaphors.

Blockchain talk makes a whiteboard of the brain. You’re always erasing, starting over, as analogies present themselves. So, Montreal bagel in hand, I considered the ducks and the carp. Let the pellets be a cryptocurrency—koicoin, say. Would the ducks then be currency miners? Every altcoin—the catchall for cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin, the majority of which are eventually classified as shitcoin—has its own community of enthusiasts and kvetchers, so perhaps the koi were this one’s. The koicommunity. The breakfast attendant who had put out the pellets: he’d be our koicoin Satoshi—as in Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous and still unidentified creator of Bitcoin. Yes, the koicoin protocol was strong, and the incentives appeared to be well aligned, but the project didn’t really pass muster in terms of immutability, decentralization, and privacy. Koicoin was shitcoin.

A few hours later, I was at lunch in a conference room in another hotel, with a table of crypto wizards, a few of them among the most respected devs in the space. (Devs are developers, and even legacy worlders must surrender after a while and ditch the scare quotes around “the space,” when referring to the cryptosphere.) Four of these devs were researchers associated with Ethereum, the open-source blockchain platform. Ethereum is not itself a cryptocurrency; to operate on Ethereum, you have to use the cryptocurrency ether, which, like bitcoin, you can buy or sell. (Among cryptocurrencies, ether’s market capitalization is second only to bitcoin’s.) The devs were specimens of an itinerant coder élite, engaged, wherever they turn up and to the exclusion of pretty much everything else, in the ongoing construction of an alternate global financial and computational infrastructure: a new way of handling money or identity, a system they describe as a better, decentralized version of the World Wide Web—a Web 3.0—more in keeping with the Internet’s early utopian promise than with the invidious, monopolistic hellscape it has become. They want to seize back the tubes, and the data—our lives—from Facebook, Google, and the new oligarchs of Silicon Valley.

One of them, Vlad Zamfir, a twenty-eight-year-old Romanian-born mathematician who grew up in Ottawa and dropped out of the University of Guelph, was scribbling equations on an electronic tablet called a reMarkable pad. He narrated as he scrawled. The others at the table leaned in toward him, in a way that recalled Rembrandt’s “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp.” To the two or three people at the table who were clearly incapable of following along, he said, earnestly, “Sorry to alienate you with my math.” Zamfir is the lead developer of one strand of Casper, an ongoing software upgrade designed to make Ethereum scale better and work more securely—an undertaking thought to be vital to its viability and survival. “It’s shitty technology,” Zamfir, whose Twitter bio reads “absurdist, troll,” told a journalist two years ago.

Zamfir was showing the others some rough equations he’d worked out to address one of the thousands of riddles that need to be solved. This particular effort was an attempt (jargon alert) to optimize the incentive structure for proof-of-stake validation—that is, how best to get enough people and machines to participate in a computing operation essential to the functioning of the entire system. “We’re trying to do game theory here,” Zamfir said. The others pointed out what they thought might be flaws. “It doesn’t seem reasonable,” Zamfir said. “But the math works out.” This summarized much of what I’d encountered in crypto.

To his right sat Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s founder and semi-reluctant philosopher king. Buterin, who is twenty-four, occasionally glanced at Zamfir’s formulas but mostly looked into the middle distance with a melancholic empty stare, sometimes typing out messages and tweets on his phone with one finger. He was a quick study, and also he pretty much already knew what Zamfir had come up with, and to his thinking the work wasn’t quite there. “When the models are getting overcomplicated, it’s probably good to have more time to try to simplify them,” he told me later, with what I took to be generous understatement.

Buterin had been working, simultaneously, on another version of Casper. So he and Zamfir were both collaborating and competing with each other. There seemed to be no ego or bitterness—in their appraisal of each other’s work, in person, or on social media, where so much of the conversation takes place, in full view. Their assessments were Spockian, and cutting only to the Kirks among us.

They had first met before a conference in Toronto in 2014. Zamfir was amazed by Buterin, whom he called a “walking computer,” and he joined Ethereum as a researcher soon after. Now good friends who meet up mostly at conferences and workshops, they had greeted each other the day before in the hotel lobby with a fervent embrace, like summer campers back for another year, before quick-walking to a quiet corner to start in on the incentive-structure-for-proof-of-stake-validation talk. Whenever and wherever Buterin and Zamfir convene, people gather around—eavesdropping, hoping for scraps of insight. The two are used to this and pay little heed. There were no secrets, only problems and solutions, and the satisfaction that comes from proceeding from one toward the other.

The first time I heard the word “Ethereum” was in April, 2017. A hedge-fund manager, at a benefit in Manhattan, was telling me that he’d made more money buying and selling ether and other cryptocurrencies in the past year than he’d ever made at his old hedge fund. This was a significant claim, since the fund had made him a billionaire. He was using words I’d never heard before. He mentioned bitcoin, too, which I’d certainly heard a lot about but, like most people my age, didn’t really understand. I’d idly hoped I might be just old enough to make it to my deathbed without having to get up to speed.

As the year wore on, that dream faded. The surge in the price of bitcoin, and of other cryptocurrencies, which proliferated amid a craze for initial coin offerings (I.C.O.s), prompted a commensurate explosion in the number of stories and conversations about this new kind of money and, sometimes more to the point, about the blockchain technology behind it—this either revolutionary or needlessly laborious way of keeping track of transactions and data. It seemed as if language had been randomized. I started hearing those words—the ones I’d never heard before—an awful lot: “trustless,” “sharding,” “flippening.” Explaining blockchain became a genre unto itself.

The dizzying run-up in crypto prices in 2017 was followed, this year, by a long, lurching retreat that, as the summer gave way to fall, began to seem perilous. As with notorious stock-market and real-estate bubbles, innocents had been taken in and cleaned out. But both boom and bust reflected an ongoing argument over what cryptocurrencies and their technological underpinnings might be worth—which is to say, whether they are, as some like to ask, real. Is crypto the future or a fad? Golden ticket or Ponzi scheme? Amazon 2.0 or tulip mania? And what is it good for, anyway? It sure is neat, but for now it lacks its killer app, a use that might lead to mass adoption, as e-mail did for the Internet. “We need the hundred-dollar laptop, the iPod,” a blockchain apostle told me.

Now and then, legacy titans voiced their scorn. Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of J. P. Morgan, labelled crypto “a fraud”; Warren Buffett used the phrase “rat poison squared.” Legions of skeptics and technophobes, out of envy, ignorance, or wisdom, savored such pronouncements, while the true believers and the vertiginously invested mostly brushed it aside. They had faith that a new order was nigh. They pumped but did not dump.

Among a certain subset, it was both fashionable and integral to ignore the fluctuations in price. The idea was to build and shore up a new system—for everything from payments and banking to health care and identity—that was either a replacement for the old one, or at least an alternative to it, one that was borderless, independent of state control and of exploitation by Big Tech. “It’s definitely nice to try to eke out some completely parallel kind of world that’s totally separate from the existing one,” Buterin said. “It does interact with the rest of society, and the goal is definitely to help improve the mainstream world, but we’re on a different track.” Such an undertaking would, at best, take many years and likely span several economic and investment cycles. While the old armature rots, a new one rises alongside it, much as the new Tappan Zee Bridge, over the Hudson, gradually took shape next to the rusty old one it would one day replace. To Buterin, however, the benefits were already clear. “The cryptocurrency space has succeeded at making certain aspects of the international economy more open, when politics is moving in the exact opposite direction,” he said. “I do think that’s a meaningful contribution to the world.”

Buterin is a striking figure, tall and very lean, with long, fidgety fingers, sharp elfin features, and vivid blue eyes, which, on the rare occasions when he allows them to meet yours, convey a depth and warmth that you don’t expect, in light of the flat, robotic cadence and tone of his speech. People often joke about him being an alien, but they usually apologize for doing so, because there’s a gentleness about him, an air of tolerance and moderation, that works as a built-in rebuke to such unkind remarks. As we spoke, on the first afternoon of the Montreal conference (the crypto life is a never-ending enchainment of conferences, and is pretty much wall-to-wall dudes), he aligned some items in front of him: pens, Post-its, phone. He forgoes most social niceties and overt expressions of emotion but, when he finds questions or assertions agreeable, is generous with notes of encouragement: “Yep, yep, yep”; “Right, totally”; “Yes, yes, exactly.” Arguable remarks elicit a mechanical “Hmm.” He seems to anticipate your question before you even know quite what it is, but he forces himself to allow you to finish. He has a dry sense of humor.

He said, “I definitely don’t have the kind of single-minded C.E.O. personality that a lot of Silicon Valley V.C.s lionize—that thing of being ambitious and wanting to win at all costs, like, basically, Mark Zuckerberg.” He was dressed that day, as on the day before and the day after, in a gray turtleneck, black track pants, and laceless Adidas sneakers over turquoise socks. He often wears T-shirts with unicorns and rainbows. He likes to cite Lambos—as in Lamborghini, the cryptobro trophy ride of choice—as shorthand for the excessive trappings of wealth, which do not interest him. He’s about as indifferently rich as a man can be. Although he sold a quarter of his bitcoin and ether well before the prices began to soar last year, he is said to be worth somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred million dollars. (He recently gave away a couple of million dollars to a life-extension research project.) He has no assistants or entourage. He owns little and travels light. “Recently, I reduced my bag size from sixty litres to forty,” he said. “Forty is very tolerable. You can go on fifteen-kilometre walks with it.” The Adidas, he said, were his only pair of shoes. “Actually, I have another pair that’s in one of the many places I call home.” These are friends’ apartments, where he sometimes sleeps for a few nights at a stretch—in Toronto, San Francisco, Singapore, Shanghai, Taipei. He especially likes East Asia. He speaks fluent Mandarin.

After Montreal, he was headed to Berlin and then Switzerland. His home, really, is the Internet. At one point, I referred to an Ethereum outpost in San Francisco, which I’d read about, as a “base of operations,” and he rejected the term: “Home. Base of operations. The more you invent your own life style, the more you realize that the categories that have been invented are ultimately, at best, imperfect devices for understanding the world, and, at worst, fake.”

I’d been trying for months to talk to Buterin. In January, I reached out to his father, Dmitry, who reported back that Vitalik was not interested in an interview. “He is trying to focus his time on research,” Dmitry said. “He’s not too excited that the community assigns so much importance to him. He wants the community to be more resilient.” Dmitry Buterin, forty-six, is from Grozny, in Chechnya. He studied computer science in Moscow and then started a financial-software business, before emigrating to Canada, when Vitalik was six. Dmitry settled in Toronto, with Vitalik; Vitalik’s mother, a financial analyst, chose Edmonton. Vitalik, when he was three, got an old PC and began fiddling around with Excel. By ten or eleven, he was developing video games. “Vitalik was a very smart boy,” his father said. “It was not easy. His mind was always racing. It was hard for him to communicate. He hardly spoke until he was nine or ten. I was concerned, but at some point I realized it is what it is. I just gave him my love.”

He also gave Vitalik his first glimpse of Bitcoin. It was 2011, somewhat early, but Dmitry was an avowed anarcho-capitalist, a cynical child of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. For many others like him, especially in those early days, the first encounter with Bitcoin was like a religious epiphany—powerful, life-altering, a glimpse of an entirely different and perhaps more agreeable way of ordering human affairs. “Bitcoin looks like money’s dream of itself,” the technology journalist Brian Patrick Eha wrote, in “How Money Got Free.”

“Before Bitcoin came along, I was happily playing World of Warcraft,” Vitalik told me. He had already been nursing some inchoate ideas about the risks and intrinsic unfairness of centralized systems and authority. He once told a journalist, “I saw everything to do with either government regulation or corporate control as just being plain evil. And I assumed that people in those institutions were kind of like Mr. Burns, sitting behind their desks saying, ‘Excellent. How can I screw a thousand people over this time?’ ” Bitcoin scratched this itch. But in many ways what drew him in was the elegance of the system, invented, it seemed, by a rogue outsider out of thin air. It suited a world view, a dream of a fluid, borderless, decentralized financial system beyond the reach of governments and banks, inclined as they inevitably are toward corruption and self-dealing, or at least toward distortions of incentive. Buterin said, “If you look at the people that were involved in the early stages of the Bitcoin space, their earlier pedigrees, if they had any pedigrees at all, were in open source—Linux, Mozilla, and cypherpunk mailing lists.” These were subversives and libertarians, ranging in political affinity from far left to weird right, as often as not without institutional or academic stature or access. “I found it immensely empowering that just a few thousand people like myself could re-create this fundamental social institution from nothing.”

In the eighties, cryptographers and computer scientists began trying to devise a foolproof form of digital money, and a way to execute transactions and contracts without the involvement (or rent-seeking) of third parties. It was the man, woman, or group of humans known as Satoshi Nakamoto who, with Bitcoin in 2008, solved the crux—the so-called double-spend problem. If you have ten dollars, you shouldn’t be able to pay ten dollars for one thing, then spend the same ten for another. This requires some mechanism for keeping track of what you have, whom you gave it to, and how much they now have. And that was the blockchain.

Definitions of blockchain are as various as the metaphors—bingo, Google Docs, a giant room of transparent safes—that people use to try to illustrate them. Broadly speaking, a blockchain is an evolving record of all transactions that is maintained, simultaneously and in common, by every computer in the network of that blockchain, be it Ethereum, Bitcoin, or Monero. Think, as some have suggested, of a dusty leather-bound ledger in a Dickensian counting house, a record of every transaction relevant to that practice. Except that every accountant in London, and in Calcutta, has the same ledger, and when one adds a line to his own the addition appears in all of them. Once a transaction is affirmed, it will—theoretically, anyway—be in the ledger forever, unalterable and unerasable.

Historically, records have been stored in one place—a temple, a courthouse, a server—and kept by whoever presided. If you distrust central authority, or are queasy about Google, this won’t do at all. With blockchains, the records, under a kind of cryptographic seal, are distributed to all and belong to no one. You can’t revise them, because everyone is watching, and because the software will reject it if you try. There is no Undo button. Each block is essentially a bundle of transactions, with a tracking notation, represented in a bit of cryptographic code known as a “hash,” of all the transactions in the past. Each new block in the chain contains all the information (or, really, via the hash, a secure reference to all the information) contained in the previous one, all the way back to the first one, the so-called genesis block.

There are other words that are sometimes included in the definition of blockchain, but they are slippery, and grounds for endless parsing, asterisking, and debate. One is “decentralized.” (Some blockchains are more decentralized than others.) Another is “immutable”—the idea that, in theory, the past record can’t be altered. (This is different from having your crypto stolen or hacked, when it’s stored in an online “wallet.” That happens all the time!) Then there’s “privacy.” The aspiration is for a digital coin to have the untraceability of cash. Because bitcoin was, at the outset, the dark Web’s go-to tender for the purchase of drugs, sex, weaponry, and such, many assumed that it was private. But it isn’t. Every transaction is there in the ledger for all to see. It is, fundamentally, anonymous (or pseudonymous, anyway), but there are many ways for that anonymity to be compromised.

The odds are high that someone, somewhere, has attempted to make an explanation like this one to you. The chain-splainer is a notorious date spoiler and cocktail-party pariah. Here he comes—you’re trapped. You should have known better than to ask about mining.

Mining is a reward system—compensation for helping to maintain and build a blockchain. The work of establishing and recording what’s legit takes machinery, memory, power, and time. Cryptocurrency blockchains require that a bunch of computers run software to affirm (or reject) transactions—it’s a kind of automated convocation. During this ritual, the computers in the network are competing, via brute guesswork, to be the first to get the answer to a really difficult math problem. The more computational power you have, the more guesses you can make, and the more likely you are to get the answer. The winner creates a new block and gets a reward, in, say, bitcoin—new bitcoin, which has not previously been in circulation. (Satoshi ordained that there be a finite number of bitcoin ever created—twenty-one million—so that no one could inflate away the value of existing bitcoin, as, say, the Federal Reserve does with dollars. Other cryptocurrencies, including ether, don’t necessarily have finite supplies.)

This system is known as Proof of Work. The problem-solving exercise is proof that the computers are doing the work. This approach has serious and, some would say, fatal, flaws. First, it requires a tremendous amount of electricity. This year, it is said, the Bitcoin network will use as much energy as the nation of Austria, and produce as much carbon dioxide as a million transatlantic flights. Mining rigs—computers designed specifically to do this work—are thirsty machines. Mining farms tend to sprout up where juice is cheap (typically, in proximity to hydropower projects with excess capacity to unload) and where temperatures are low (so you don’t have to burn even more electricity to keep the rigs cool). There are open-air warehouses in remote corners of sub-Arctic Canada, Russia, and China, with machines whirring away on the tundra, creating magic money, while the permafrost melts. Second, a small number of mining conglomerates, or pools—many of them Chinese—have wielded outsized influence over the network and the decisions that get made. Last month, one of the biggest of these, Bitmain, confirmed plans to go public.

The alternative, which Zamfir and Buterin were working on in Montreal, is called Proof of Stake. In this scenario, the holders of the currency in question become the validators, who typically take a small cut of every approved transaction. Theoretically, the more crypto you have, the more influence you have, so PoW partisans consider PoS to be plutocratic as well—a new gloss on the old problem of too much in the hands of too few.

In 2013, Buterin travelled to San Jose for a Bitcoin meet-up, and felt that he’d encountered like-minded people for the first time in his life—a movement worth devoting himself to. “The people that I had been searching for the whole time were actually all there,” Buterin told me. Zooko Wilcox, a cryptographer, recalled Buterin telling him, “This is the first technology I’ve ever loved that loves me back.” Buterin had been writing blog posts about it for five bitcoins per post. Together, he and Mihai Alisie, a Romanian blockchain entrepreneur who’d read his posts, founded Bitcoin Magazine. Buterin had a knack for explaining things—at least to an audience already primed to understand. But, as he travelled around the world to Bitcoin meet-ups, he began to think that the technology was limited, that attempts to jury-rig non-money uses for this digital-money platform was the computational equivalent of a Swiss Army knife. You basically had to devise hacks. He envisaged a one-blade-fits-all version, a blockchain platform that was broader and more adaptable to a wider array of uses and applications. The concept behind Bitcoin—a network of machines all over the world—seemed to be a building block upon which to construct a global computer capable of all kinds of activities.

In..

http://bit.ly/2QBhnFA

[vicicicici-blog1]

20xx/06/18

The site didn't work.

I left the info on the manager's desk. She's always been the nosy type, and I was certain she'd check out the information for shits and giggles. She did, and even made a point about calling me and my coworkers over.

Apparently it linked her to some weird site for purchasing sexy clown dolls. I'm just not sure what to think at this point. The site worked fine when I got home.

The hidden mic vanished too. No sign of it anywhere. I'm pissed off. But I just thought of a better idea anyways.

_____________________________________ 20xx/06/22

Once again, it's meeting time. Today, I made a point of getting there before the event was set to begin, mainly to get a better look at the full website before my stomach started churning.

Without the restrictions of being a Level 1, there's certainly a lot more available for purchase, and certainly not stuff as innocuous as garden tools. Some of the items available are huge, bizarre torture contraptions, available for rental at hundreds of dollars, or a full purchase at thousands.

There's also hundreds of videos archived for viewing, depicting the torture and murder of an indescribable number of people, mostly young men. Women only seem to get involved as a secondary effect, rather than being outright targeted. It's not all of them, however. Some of them are still stuck behind a paywall.

Little did anyone there know that I've been recording this entire time. I know that Alex doesn't keep anything more than the hidden mic around the house, so I decided to improvise with my phone. I guess it's kind of an obvious trick - I taped the phone down to my chest, just to make sure it wouldn't slide out of place, and disguised the camera as one of the buttons on a black shirt, using a little snap button I've made to keep it in place. Now, at least, even if the audio didn't pick up, I could still get visuals of the clubroom. I emptied my phone of as much data as I could, and made sure it was fully charged before leaving. As of this writing, I haven't checked the video - my phone ended up barely having two percent left by the end of it, so I'm typing this out as I'm waiting for it to charge.

Today, it was another recording from somewhere else. Rather than being a club recording, this was done from the home of one of their contracted killers, [NAME REDACTED AND ALSO INFO BECAUSE IT WOULDNT BE HARD TO FIGURE OUT WHO THIS PERSON IS FROM THAT HOOBOY] who, rather than being shown killing someone, had a bunch of random body parts, that she'd sewn together into a new, full body. I'm pretty sure that some of those parts were from the boys that were killed by Red Fox last week. The announcer had brought up that some of the pieces were donated by other members, but I found myself tuning out most of what she had to say. If the audio is still working in the video, I'll add an entry about what she specifically says later.

More importantly, however, was how the meeting ended.

There's a special lottery being planned out - the prize is a living, human being. It's apparently one of the test subjects from the FDN. The announcement described the subject as a "Type Two" that had "barely been used" and all it took for a chance to win was ten dollars per entry, though more entries could be bought. Everyone seemed really excited about this. I asked [NAME REDACTED] about it.

She told me that FDN subjects are one of the most expensive luxuries available for purchase. I double checked the computer about it before I left, the lowest price for one that I could find cost roughly 75 000 dollars, and most others were vastly more expensive, based on factors like age, test usage, and whether or not they were a type one, or a type two. All the photos looked like the same two people, at varying ages. The apparent reason for their luxury is, in fact, that these FDN test subjects are apparently immortal, most particularily, with Type Twos. Not a single type two, apparently, has even been recorded to have died, even from old age.

It sounds like fantasy bullshit. I have no clue how exactly a scam like that could work, but I can't really imagine that, after finding the key to immortality, that such a thing could be used for the sake of... well, everything I've been typing out in these entries. Regardless of any of that, I entered the draw. 

I hate the fact that I spent any money on the club, even just ten dollars for one entry, but on the off chance I'm lucky enough to actually win this Type Two subject, not only will I have an eyewitness to this clubs' misgivings, but I may, finally, save someone from the clutches of mistreatment, violence, and most likely, a horrible demise. I'll find out if I won or not at the next meeting. They plan on shipping out the subject to the winner so that they get him immediately once the winner's name is announced.

I feel really tired after typing all that out. I'm going to check the footage in the morning. ________________________________________________ 20xx/06/23

My phone is broken.

I found it cracked apart, and everything left plunged in the toilet.

I'm not sure who could've done this. I'm not a heavy sleeper, and if someone was in the house, grabbed my phone, and smashed it, I should've heard it. I at least know how it get broken. I found the hammer in the garage, covered in tiny bits of plastic, plasma, and glass. The window to the garage is slightly ajar, so it might be possible that they managed to sneak in and out without needing to break anything. I checked for fingerprints, but I didn't find any other than my own and Alex's.

Though, last night, I did also have a glass of soda at the meeting, at least as an attempt to make myself look less conspicuous. Perhaps they've known all along, and laced my drink with something. I did wake up later than usual, though that also may have to do with the fact that my phone was also my alarm clock. At least it's a Saturday.

I should be careful when I go to the next meeting. __________________________________________________

yo

i didn't mention it in the last post, but im pretty sure i know what shes talking about with this fdn stuff

one of those times i got in trouble with the csis involved a bunch of weird documents i found that talked about the existence of a place with that name specifically, it stood for future day neverland

its a lab or something and apparently has some nasty history with [NAME REDACTED] which is pretty funny considering theyre both real involved with warren tech

EDIT: oops i wasnt supposed to say that name